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THE 

BLAZED 

TRAIL 


P ART II of this hook appeared in 
McClure's Magazine for December , 
1901, and January and February , 1902, 
under the title of CiC The Forest Runner ” 











* 





























































































■ 

























u Ob ! ” she cried , “7 Love you ; J 
love you all ! ” 


THE 

BLAZED 

TRAIL 


BY 

STEWART EDWARD WHITE 

Author of 

THE WESTERNERS , CONJUROR'S 
HOUSE , etc. 

r 

ILLUSTRATED BT THOMAS FOGARTY 



NEW YORK 

M C CL URE, PHILLIPS & C? 

MCMIV 



Copyright, igoi and igo2 , by 
S. S. McCLURE CO. 

I()02 by 

STEWART EDWARD WHITE 


V\x ^ 


Published, March , igo2 , R 


Eighteenth Impression 


To 


MV JMer 

from whose early pioneer life are drawn 
many of Harry Thorpe's 
experiences 

r 



A Table of the Contents 


PART I 

Page 

THE FOREST / 

PART 11 

THE LANDLOOKER /// 

PART 111 

THE BLAZING OF THE TRAIL . . . /;p 
PART IV 

THORPE'S DREAM GIRL 263 


PART V 

THE FOLLOWING OF THE TRAIL . . 307 



















* 











LIST of ILLUSTRATIONS 


u Oh ! ” she cried , w I love you ; I love you 
all ! ” Frontispiece 

Suddenly he became aware of a presence at his 
side 12 p 

“ Oh, please ! ” cried the boy, u I do want to get 
in something real ! ” i/j.y 

' Then forward again by the intermittent light of 
the moon and stars 153 

w You will kindly step one side until I finish my 
business with Mr. Smithers here” 163 

He rushed on Dyer, and with one full, clean 
in-blow stretched him on the dock 209 

Thorpe seized the giant by the collar, and dragged 
him through the water to safety 381 













V 












« 












* 


THE 


BLAZED 

TRAIL 

r 

Part I 
The Forest 






Chapter 1 


Y ~T ’^ r HEN history has granted him the justice 
§/1/ of perspective, we shall know the American 
* r Pioneer as one of the most picturesque of 
her many figures. Resourceful, self-reliant, bold ; 
adapting himself with fluidity to diverse circumstances 
and conditions; meeting with equal cheerfulness of 
confidence and completeness of capability both un- 
known dangers and the perils by which he has been 
educated; seizing the useful in the lives of the beasts 
and men nearest him, and assimilating it with mar- 
vellous rapidity; he presents to the world a picture 
of complete adequacy which it would be difficult to 
match in any other walk of life. He is a strong man, 
with a strong man’s virtues and a strong man’s vices. 
In him the passions are elemental, the dramas epic, 
for he lives in the age when men are close to nature, 
and draw from her their forces. He satisfies his needs 
direct from the earth. Stripped of all the towns can 
give him, he merely resorts to a facile substitution. 
It becomes an affair of rawhide for leather, buckskin 
for cloth, venison for canned tomatoes. We feel that 
his steps are planted on solid earth, for civilizations 
may crumble without disturbing his magnificent self- 
poise. In him we perceive dimly his environment. 
He has something about him which other men do not 
possess — a frank clearness of the eye, a swing of the 
shoulder, a carriage of the hips, a tilt of the hat, an 
air of muscular well-being — which marks him as be- 
longing to the advance guard, whether he wears buck- 
skin, mackinaw, sombrero, or broadcloth. The woods 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


4 

are there, the plains, the rivers. Snow is there, and 
the line of the prairie. Mountain peaks and still pine 
forests have impressed themselves subtly; so that 
when we turn to admire his unconsciously graceful 
swing, we seem to hear the ax biting the pine, or the 
prospector’s pick tapping the rock. And in his eye 
is the capability of quiet humor, which is just the 
quality that the surmounting of many difficulties will 
give a man. 

Like the nature he has fought until he understands, 
his disposition is at once kindly and terrible. Out- 
side the subtleties of his calling, he sees only red. Re- 
lieved of the strenuousness of his occupation, he turns 
all the force of the wonderful energies that have car- 
ried him far where other men would have halted, to 
channels in which a gentle current makes flood 
enough. It is the mountain torrent and the canal. 
Instead of pleasure, he seeks orgies. He runs to wild 
excesses of drinking, fighting, and carousing — which 
would frighten most men to sobriety — with a happy, 
reckless spirit that carries him beyond the limits of 
even his extraordinary forces. 

This is not the moment to judge him. And yet one 
cannot help admiring the magnificently picturesque 
spectacle of such energies running riot. The power 
is still in evidence, though beyond its proper appli- 
cation. 


Chapter II 

/ N the network of streams draining the eastern 
portion of Michigan and known as the Saginaw 
waters, the great firm of Morrison & Daly had 
for many years carried on extensive logging opera- 
tions in the wilderness. The number of their camps 
was legion, of their employees a multitude. Each 
spring they had gathered in their capacious booms 
from thirty to fifty million feet of pine logs. 

Now at last, in the early eighties, they reached the 
end of their holdings. Another winter would finish 
the cut. Two summers would see the great mills at 
Beeson Lake dismantled or sold, while Mr. Daly, the 
“ woods partner ” of the combination, would flit away 
to the scenes of new and perhaps more extensive 
operations. At this juncture Mr. Daly called to him 
John Radway, a man whom he knew to possess ex- 
tensive experience, a little capital, and a desire for 
more of both. 

“ Radway,” said he, ^when the tVo found them- 
selves alone in the mill office, “ we expect to cut this 
year some fifty millions, which will finish our pine 
holdings in the Saginaw waters. Most of this timber 
lies over in the Crooked Lake district, and that we 
expect to put in ourselves. We own, however, five 
million on the Cass Branch which we would like to 
log on contract. Would you care to take the job?” 

“ How much a thousand do you give? ” asked Rad- 
way. 

“ Four dollars,” replied the lumberman. 

“ I'll look at it,” replied the jobber. 


6 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


So Radway got the “ descriptions ” and a little map 
divided into townships, sections, and quarter sec- 
tions ; and went out to look at it. He searched until 
he found a “ blaze ” on a tree, the marking on which 
indicated it as the corner of a section. From this cor- 
ner the boundary lines were blazed at right angles in 
either direction. Radway followed the blazed lines. 
Thus he was able accurately to locate isolated “for- 
ties ” (forty acres), “ eighties,” quarter sections, and 
sections in a primeval wilderness. The feat, however, 
required considerable woodcraft, an exact sense of di- 
rection, and a pocket compass. 

These resources were still further drawn upon for 
the next task. Radway tramped the woods, hills, and 
valleys to determine the most practical route over 
which to build a logging road from the standing tim- 
ber to the shores of Cass Branch. He found it to be 
an affair of some puzzlement. The pines stood on a 
country rolling with hills, deep with pot-holes. It be- 
came necessary to dodge in and out, here and there, 
between the knolls, around or through the swamps, 
still keeping, however, the same general direction, and 
preserving always the requisite level or down grade. 
Radway had no vantage point from which to survey, 
the country. A city man would promptly have lost 
himself in the tangle ; but the woodsman emerged 
at last on the banks , of the stream, leaving behind 
him a meandering trail of clipped trees that wound, 
twisted, doubled, and turned, but kept ever to a coun- 
try without steep hills. From the main road he pur- 
posed arteries to tap the most distant parts. 

“ I’ll take it,” said he to Daly. 

Now Radway happened to be in his way a peculiar 
character. He was acutely sensitive to the human side 
of those with whom he had dealings. In fact, he was 
more inclined to take their point of view than to hold 
his own. For that reason, the subtler disputes were 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


7 


likely to go against him. His desire to avoid com- 
ing into direct collision of opinion with the other man, 
veiled whatever of justice might reside in his own 
contention. Consequently it was difficult for him 
to combat sophistry or a plausible appearance of right. 
Daly was perfectly aware of Radway’s peculiarities, 
and so proceeded to drive a sharp bargain with him. 

Customarily a jobber is paid a certain proportion of 
the agreed price as each stage of the work is com- 
pleted — so much when the timber is cut ; so much 
when it is skidded, or piled ; so much when it is 
stacked at the river, or banked; so much when the 
“ drive ” down the waters of the river is finished. 
Daly objected to this method of procedure. 

“ You see, Radway,” he explained, “ it is our last 
season in the country. When this lot is in, we want 
to pull up stakes, so we can’t take any chances on 
not getting that timber in. If you don’t finish your 
job, it keeps us here another season. There can be 
no doubt, therefore, that you finish your job. In 
other words, we can’t take any chances. If you start 
the thing, you’ve got to carry it ’way through.” 

“ I think I can, Mr. Daly,” the jobber assured 
him. 

“ For that reason,” went on Daly, “ we object to 
paying you as the work progresses. We’ve got to 
have a guarantee that you don’t quit on us, and that 
those logs will be driven down the branch as far as 
the river in time to catch our drive. Therefore I’m 
going to make you a good price per thousand, but 
payable only when the logs are delivered to our river- 
men.” 

Radway, with his usual mental attitude of one 
anxious to justify the other man, ended by seeing only 
his employer’s argument. He did not perceive that 
the latter’s proposition introduced into the transac- 
tion a gambling element. It became possible for Mor- 


8 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


rison & Daly to get a certain amount of work, short 
of absolute completion, done for nothing. 

“ How much does the timber estimate ? ” he in- 
quired finally. 

“ About five millions.” 

“ I’d need a camp of forty or fifty men then. I 
don’t see how I can run such a camp without bor- 
rowing.” 

“ You have some money, haven’t you?” 

“Yes; a little. But I have a family, too.” 

“That’s all right. Now look here.” Daly drew 
towards him a sheet of paper and began to set down 
figures showing how the financing could be done. 
Finally it was agreed. Radway was permitted to 
draw on the Company’s warehouse for what provis- 
ions he would need. Daly let him feel it as a con- 
cession. 

All this was in August. Radway, who was a good 
practical woodsman, set about the job immediately. 
He gathered a crew, established his camp, and began 
at once to cut roads through the country he had al- 
ready blazed on his former trip. 

Those of us who have ever paused to watch a group 
of farmers working out their road taxes, must have 
gathered a formidable impression of road-clearing. 
And the few of us who, besides, have experienced the 
adventure of a drive over the same highway after the 
tax has been pronounced liquidated, must have in- 
dulged in varied reflections as to the inadequacy of the 
result. 

Radway’s task was not merely to level out and bal- 
last the six feet of a road-bed already constructed, 
but to cut a way for five miles through the unbroken 
wilderness. The way had moreover to be not less 
than twenty-five feet wide, needed to be absolutely 
level and free from any kind of obstructions, and re- 
quired in the swamps liberal ballasting with poles, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


9 


called corduroys. To one who will take the trouble 
to recall the variety of woods, thickets, and jungles 
that go to make up a wooded country — especially in 
the creek bottoms where a logging road finds often its 
levelest way — and the piles of windfalls, vines, 
bushes, and scrubs that choke the thickets with a dis- 
couraging and inextricable tangle, the clearing of five 
miles to street width will look like an almost hopeless 
undertaking. Not only must the growth be removed, 
but the roots must be cut out, and the inequalities of 
the ground levelled or filled up. Reflect further that 
Radway had but a brief time at his disposal, — but a 
few months at most, — and you will then be in a posi- 
tion to gauge the first difficulties of those the Ameri- 
can pioneer expects to encounter as a matter of course. 
The cutting of the road was a mere incident in the 
battle with the wilderness. 

The jobber, of course, pushed his roads as rapidly 
as possible, but was greatly handicapped by lack of 
men. Winter set in early and surprised him with sev- 
eral of the smaller branches yet to finish. The main 
line, however, was done. 

At intervals squares were cut out alongside. In 
them two long timbers, or skids, were laid andiron- 
wise for the reception of the piles of logs which would 
be dragged from the fallen trees. They were called 
skidways. Then finally the season’s cut began. 

The men who were to fell the trees, Radway distrib- 
uted along one boundary of a “ forty.” They were in- 
structed to move forward across the forty in a straight 
line, felling every pine tree over eight inches in diam- 
eter. While the “ saw-gangs,” three in number, pre- 
pared to fell the first trees, other men, called “ swamp- 
ers,” were busy cutting and clearing of roots narrow 
little trails down through the forest from the pine to 
the skidway at the edge of the logging road. The 
trails were perhaps three feet wide, and marvels of 


id 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


smoothness, although no attempt was made to level 
mere inequalities of the ground. They were called 
travoy roads (French travois). Down them the logs 
would be dragged and hauled, either by means of 
heavy steel tongs or a short sledge on which one end 
of the timber would be chained. 

Meantime the sawyers were busy. Each pair of 
men selected a tree, the first they encountered over 
the blazed line of their “ forty.” After determining in 
which direction it was to fall, they set to work to chop 
a deep gash in that side of the trunk. 

Tom Broadhead and Henry Paul picked out a tre- 
mendous pine which they determined to throw across 
a little open space in proximity to the travoy road. 
One stood to right, the other to left, and alternately 
their axes bit deep. It was a beautiful sight this, of 
experts wielding their tools. The craft of the woods- 
man means incidentally such a free swing of the 
shoulders and hips, such a directness of stroke as the 
blade of one sinks accurately in the gash made by 
the other, that one never tires of watching the grace 
of it. Tom glanced up as a sailor looks aloft. 

“ She’ll do, Hank,” he said. 

The two then with a dozen half clips of the ax, re- 
moved the inequalities of the bark from the saw’s 
path. The long, flexible ribbon of steel began to sing, 
bending so adaptably to the hands and motions of the 
men manipulating, that it did not seem possible so 
mobile an instrument could cut the rough pine. In a 
moment the song changed timbre. Without a word 
the men straightened their backs. Tom flirted along 
the blade a thin stream of kerosene oil from a bottle 
in his hip pocket, and the sawyers again bent to their 
work, swaying back and forth rhythmically, their mus- 
cles rippling under the texture of their woolens like 
those of a panther under its skin. The outer edge of 
the saw-blade disappeared. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


1 1 


“ Better wedge her, Tom,” advised Hank. 

They paused while, with a heavy sledge, Tom drove 
a triangle of steel into the crack made by the sawing. 
This prevented the weight of the tree from pinching 
the saw, which is a ruin at once to the instrument and 
the temper of the filer. Then the rhythmical 2-2-2! 
2-2-2! again took up its song. 

When the trunk was nearly severed, Tom drove an- 
other and thicker wedge. 

“Timber!” hallooed Hank in a long-drawn melo- 
dious call that melted through the woods into the dis- 
tance. The swampers ceased work and withdrew to 
safety. 

But the tree stood obstinately upright. So the saw 
leaped back and forth a few strokes more. 

“ Crack! ” called the tree. 

Hank coolly unhooked his saw handle, and Tom 
drew the blade through and out the other side. 

The tree shivered, then leaned ever so slightly from 
the perpendicular, then fell, at first gently, afterwards 
with a crescendo rush, tearing through the branches 
of other trees, bending the small timber, breaking the 
smallest, and at last hitting with a tremendous crash 
and bang which filled the air with a fog of small twigs, 
needles, and the powder of snow, that settled but 
slowly. There is nothing more impressive than this 
rush of a pine top, excepting it be a charge of cavalry 
or the fall of Niagara. Old woodsmen sometimes 
shout aloud with the mere excitement into which it 
lifts them. 

Then the swampers, who had by now finished the 
travoy road, trimmed the prostrate trunk clear of all 
protuberances. It required fairly skillful ax work. 
The branches had to be shaved close and clear, and at 
the same time the trunk must not be gashed. And 
often a man was forced to wield his instrument from a 
constrained position. 


12 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


The chopped branches and limbs had now to be 
dragged clear and piled. While this was being fin- 
ished, Tom and Hank marked off and sawed the log 
lengths, paying due attention to the necessity of 
avoiding knots, forks, and rotten places. Thus some 
of the logs were eighteen, some sixteen, or fourteen, 
and some only twelve feet in length. 

Next appeared the teamsters with their little 
wooden sledges, their steel chains, and their tongs. 
They had been helping the skidders to place the 
parallel and level beams, or skids, on which the logs 
were to be piled by the side of the road. The tree 
which Tom and Hank had just felled, lay up a gentle 
slope from the new travoy road, so little Fabian 
Laveque, the teamster, clamped the bite of his tongs 
to the end of the largest, or butt, log. 

“ Allez, Molly. ! ” he cried. 

The horse, huge, elephantine, her head down, nose 
close to her chest, intelligently spying her steps, 
moved. The log half rolled over, slid three feet, and 
menaced a stump. 

“ Gee! ” cried Laveque. 

Molly stepped twice directly sideways, planted her 
fore foot on a root she had seen, and pulled sharply. 
The end of the log slid around the stump. 

“ Allez ! ” commanded Laveque. 

And Molly started gingerly down the hill. She 
pulled the timber, heavy as an iron safe, here and 
there through the brush, missing no steps, making no 
false moves, backing, and finally getting out of the 
way of an unexpected roll with the ease and intelli- 
gence of Laveque himself. In five minutes the burden 
lay by the travoy road. In two minutes more one end 
of it had been rolled on the little flat wooden sledge 
and, the other end dragging, it was winding majes- 
tically down through the ancient forest. The little 
Frenchman stood high on the forward end. Molly 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


*3 

stepped ahead carefully, with the strange intelligence 
of the logger’s horse. Through the tall, straight, deco- 
rative trunks of trees the little convoy moved with the 
massive pomp of a dead warrior’s cortege. And little 
Fabian Laveque, singing, a midget in the vastness, 
typified the indomitable spirit of these conquerors of 
a wilderness. 

When Molly and Fabian had travoyed the log to 
the skidway, they drew it with a bump across the two 
parallel skids, and left it there to be rolled to the top 
of the pile. 

Then Mike McGovern and Bob Stratton and Jim 
Gladys took charge of it. Mike and Bob were run- 
ning the cant-hooks, while Jim stood on top of the 
great pile of logs already decked. A slender, pliable 
steel chain, like a gray snake, ran over the top of the 
pile and disappeared through a pulley to an invisible 
horse, — Jenny, the mate of Molly. Jim threw the end 
of this chain down. Bob passed it over and under the 
log and returned it to Jim, who reached down after it 
with the hook of his implement. Thus the stick of 
timber rested in a long loop, one end of which led to 
the invisible horse, and the other Jim made fast to the 
top of the pile. He did so by jamming into another 
log the steel swamp-hook with which the chain was 
armed. When all was made fast, the horse started. 

“ She’s a bumper ! ” said Bob. “ Look out, Mike ! ” 

The log slid to the foot of the two parallel poles laid 
slanting up the face of the pile. Then it trembled on 
the ascent. But one end stuck for an instant, and at 
once the log took on a dangerous slant. Quick as 
light Bob and Mike sprang forward, gripped the 
hooks of the cant-hooks, like great thumbs and fore- 
fingers, and, while one held with all his power, the 
other gave a sharp twist upward. The log straight- 
ened. It was a master feat of power, and the knack 
of applying strength justly. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


H 

At the top of the little incline, the timber hovered 
for a second. 

“ One more ! ” sang out Jim to the driver. He 
poised, stepped lightly up and over, and avoided by 
the safe hair’s breadth being crushed when the log 
rolled. But it did not lie quite straight and even. So 
Mike cut a short thick block, and all three stirred 
the heavy timber sufficiently to admit of the billet’s 
insertion. 

Then the chain was thrown down for another. 

Jenny, harnessed only to a straight short bar with 
a hook in it, leaned to her collar and dug in her hoofs 
at the word of command. The driver, close to her 
tail, held fast the slender steel chain by an ingenious 
hitch about the ever-useful swamp-hook. When Jim 
shouted “ whoa ! ” from the top of the skidway, the 
driver did not trouble to stop the horse, — he merely 
let go the hook. So the power was shut off suddenly, 
as is meet and proper in such ticklish business. He 
turned and walked back, and Jenny, like a dog, with- 
out the necessity of command, followed him in slow 
patience. 

Now came Dyer, the scaler, rapidly down the log- 
ging road, a small slender man with a little, turned- 
up mustache. The men disliked him because of his 
affectation of a city smartness, and because he never 
ate with them, even when there was plenty of room. 
Radway had confidence in him because he lived in 
the same shanty with him. This one fact a good deal 
explains Radway’s character. The scaler’s duty at 
present was to measure the diameter of the logs in 
each skidway, and so compute the number of board 
feet. At the office he tended van, kept the books, and 
looked after supplies. 

He approached the skidway swiftly, laid his flex- 
ible rule across the face of each log, made a mark 
on his pine tablets in the column to which the log 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


*5 


belonged, thrust the tablet in the pocket of his coat, 
seized a blue crayon, in a long holder, with which 
he made an 8 as indication that the log had been 
scaled, and finally tapped several times strongly with 
a sledge hammer. On the face of the hammer in 
relief was an M inside of a delta. This was the Com- 
pany’s brand, and so the log was branded as belong- 
ing to them. He swarmed all over the skidway, rapid 
and absorbed, in strange contrast of activity to the 
slower power of the actual skidding. In a moment 
he moved on to the next scene of operations without 
having said a word to any of the men. 

“ A fine t’ing! ” said Mike, spitting. 

So day after day the work went on. Radway spent 
his time tramping through the woods, figuring on new 
work, showing the men how to do things better or 
differently, discussing minute expedients with the 
blacksmith, the carpenter, the cook. 

He was not without his troubles. First he had not 
enough men; the snow lacked, and then came too 
abundantly; horses fell sick of colic or caulked them- 
selves ; supplies ran low unexpectedly ; trees turned 
out “punk”; a certain bit of ground proved soft 
for travoying, and so on. At election-time, of course, 
a number of the men went out. 

And one evening, two days after election-time, an- 
other and important character entered the North 
woods and our story. 


Chapter III 

the evening in question, some thirty or forty 
f J miles southeast of Radway’s camp, a train was 
V-X crawling over a badly laid track which led 
towards the Saginaw Valley. The whole affair was 
very crude. To the edge of the right-of-way pushed 
the dense swamp, like a black curtain shutting the vir- 
gin country from the view of civilization. Even by 
daylight the sight could have penetrated but a few 
feet. The right-of-way itself was rough with upturned 
stumps, blackened by fire, and gouged by many and 
varied furrows. Across the snow were tracks of ani- 
mals. 

The train consisted of a string of freight cars, one 
coach divided half and half between baggage and 
smoker, and a day car occupied by two silent, awk- 
ward women and a child. In the smoker lounged a 
dozen men. They were of various sizes and descrip- 
tions, but they all wore heavy blanket mackinaw coats, 
rubber shoes, and thick German socks tied at the 
knee. This constituted, as it were, a sort of uniform. 
The air was so thick with smoke that the men had 
difficulty in distinguishing objects across the length 
of the car. 

The passengers sprawled in various attitudes. 
Some hung their legs over the arms of the seats; 
others perched their feet on the backs of the seats in 
front ; still others slouched in corners, half reclining. 
Their occupations were as diverse. Three nearest the 
baggage-room door attempted to sing, but without 
much success. A man in the corner breathed softly 
16 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


*7 

through a mouth organ, to the music of which his seat 
mate, leaning his head sideways, gave close attention. 
One big fellow with a square beard swaggered back 
and forth down the aisle offering to everyone refresh- 
ment from a quart bottle. It was rarely refused. Of 
the dozen, probably three quarters were more or less 
drunk. 

After a time the smoke became too dense. A short, 
thick-set fellow with an evil dark face coolly thrust 
his heel through a window. The conductor, who, with 
the brakeman and baggage master, was seated in the 
baggage van, heard the jingle of glass. He arose. 

“ Guess I’ll take up tickets,” he remarked. “ Per- 
haps it will quiet the boys down a little.” 

The conductor was a big man, raw-boned and 
broad, with a hawk face. His every motion showed 
lean, quick, panther-like power. 

“ Let her went,” replied the brakeman, rising as a 
matter of course to follow his chief. 

The brakeman was stocky, short, and long armed. 
In the old fighting days Michigan railroads chose 
their train officials with an eye to their superior del- 
toids. A conductor who could not throw an undesir- 
able fare through a car window lived a short official 
life. The two men loomed on the noisy smoking com- 
partment. 

“ Tickets, please ! ” clicked the conductor sharply. 
J Most of the men began to fumble about in their 
pockets, but the three singers and the one who had 
been offering the quart bottle did not stir. 

“ Ticket, Jack ! ” repeated the conductor, “ come 
on, now.” 

The big bearded man leaned uncertainly against the 
seat. 

“ Now look here, Bud,” he urged in wheedling 
tones, “ I ain’t got no ticket. You know how it is, 
Bud. I blows my stake.” He fished uncertainly in his 


i8 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


pocket and produced the quart bottle, nearly empty, 
“ Have a drink ? ” 

“ No/’ said the conductor sharply. 

“ A ’ right,” replied Jack, amiably, “ take one my- 
self.” He tipped the bottle, emptied it, and hurled it 
through a window. The conductor paid no apparent 
attention to the breaking of the glass. 

“ If you haven’t any ticket, you’ll have to get off,” 
said he. 

The big man straightened up. 

“ You go to hell! ” he snorted, and with the sole of 
his spiked boot delivered a mighty kick at the con- 
ductor’s thigh. 

The official, agile as a wild cat, leaped back, then 
forward, and knocked the man half the length of the 
car. You see, he was used to it. Before Jack could 
regain his feet the official stood over him. 

The three men in the corner had also risen, and 
were staggering down the aisle intent on battle. The 
conductor took in the chances with professional 
rapidity. 

“ Get at ’em, Jimmy,” said he. 

And as the big man finally swayed to his feet, he 
was seized by the collar and trousers in the grip 
known to “ bouncers ” everywhere, hustled to the 
door, which someone obligingly opened, and hurled 
from the moving train into the snow. The conductor 
did not care a straw whether the obstreperous Jack 
lit on his head or his feet, hit a snowbank or a pile of 
ties. Those were rough days, and the preservation 
of authority demanded harsh measures. 

Jimmy had got at ’em in a method of his own. He 
gathered himself into a ball of potential trouble, and 
hurled himself bodily at the legs of his opponents 
which he gathered in a mighty bear hug. It would 
have been poor fighting had Jimmy to carry the af- 
fair to a finish by himself, but considered as an ex- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


19 


pedient to gain time for the ejectment proceedings, it 
was admirable. The conductor returned to find a 
kicking, rolling, gouging mass of kinetic energy 
knocking the varnish off all one end of the car. A 
head appearing, he coolly batted it three times against 
a corner of the seat arm, after which he pulled the con- 
testant out by the hair and threw him into a seat where 
he lay limp. Then it could be seen that Jimmy had 
clasped tight in his embrace a leg each of the other 
two. He hugged them close to his breast, and 
jammed his face down against them to protect his 
features. They could pound the top of his head and 
welcome. The only thing he really feared was a kick 
in the side, and for that there was hardly room. 

The conductor stood over the heap, at a manifest 
advantage. 

“ You lumber-jacks had enough, or do you want 
to catch it plenty ? ” 

The men, drunk though they were, realized their 
helplessness. They signified they had had enough. 
Jimmy thereupon released them and stood up, brush- 
ing down his tousled hair with his stubby fingers. 

“Now is it ticket or bounce?” inquired the con- 
ductor. 

After some difficulty and grumbling, the two paid 
their fare and that of the third, who was still dazed. 
In return the conductor gave them slips. Then he 
picked his lantern from the overhead rack whither he 
had tossed it, slung it on his left arm, and sauntered 
on down the aisle punching tickets. Behind him fol- 
lowed Jimmy. When he came to the door he swung 
across the platform with the easy lurch of the train- 
man, and entered the other car, where he took the 
tickets of the two women and the boy. One sitting 
in the second car would have been unable to guess 
from the bearing or manner of the two officials that 
anything had gone wrong. 


20 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 

The interested spectators of the little drama in- 
cluded two men near the water-cooler who were per- 
fectly sober. One of them was perhaps a little past 
the best of life, but still straight and vigorous. His 
lean face was leather-brown in contrast to a long 
mustache and heavy eyebrows bleached nearly white, 
his eyes were a clear steady blue, and his frame was 
slender but wiry. He wore the regulation mackinaw 
blanket coat, a peaked cap with an extraordinarily 
high crown, and buckskin moccasins over long stock- 
ings. 

The other was younger, not more than twenty-six 
perhaps, with the clean-cut, regular features we have 
come to consider typically American. Eyebrows that 
curved far down along the temples, and eyelashes of a 
darkness in contrast to the prevailing note of his com- 
plexion combined to lend him a rather brooding, soft, 
and melancholy air which a very cursory second ex- 
amination showed to be fictitious. His eyes, like the 
woodsman’s, were steady, but inquiring. His jaw 
was square and settled, his mouth straight. One 
would be likely to sum him up as a man whose actions 
would be little influenced by glamour or even by the 
sentiments. And yet, equally, it was difficult to rid 
the mind of the impression produced by his eyes. 
Unlike the other inmates of the car, he wore an ordi- 
nary business suit, somewhat worn, but of good cut, 
and a style that showed even over the soft flannel 
shirt. The trousers were, however, bound inside the 
usual socks and rubbers. 

The two seat mates had occupied their time each in 
his own fashion. To the elder the journey was an 
evil to be endured with the patience learned in watch- 
ing deer runways, so he stared straight before him, 
and spat with a certain periodicity into the centre of 
the aisle. The younger stretched back lazily in an 
attitude of ease which spoke of the habit of travelling. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


21 


Sometimes he smoked a pipe. Thrice he read over 
a letter. It was from his sister, and announced her 
arrival at the little rural village in which he had made 
arrangements for her to stay. “ It is interesting, — 
now,” she wrote, “ though the resources do not look 
as though they would wear well. I am learning under 
Mrs. Renwick to sweep and dust and bake and stew 
and do a multitude of other things which I always 
vaguely supposed came ready-made. I like it; but 
after I have learned it all, I do not believe the prac- 
tise will appeal to me much. However, I can stand it 
well enough for a year or two or three, for I am 
young ; and then you will have made your everlasting 
fortune, of course.” 

Harry Thorpe experienced a glow of pride each 
time he read this part of the letter. He liked the 
frankness of the lack of pretence; he admired the 
penetration and self-analysis which had taught her the 
truth that, although learning a new thing is always 
interesting, the practising of an old one is monoto- 
nous. And her pluck appealed to him. It is not easy 
for a girl to step from the position of mistress of ser- 
vants to that of helping about the housework of a 
small family in a small town for the sake of the home 
to be found in it. 

“ She’s a trump ! ” said Thorpe to himself, “ and she 
shall have her everlasting fortune, if there’s such a 
thing in the country.” 

He jingled the three dollars and sixty cents in his 
pocket, and smiled. That was the extent of his ever- 
lasting fortune at present. 

The letter had been answered from Detroit. 

“ I am glad you are settled,” he wrote. “ At least 
I know you have enough to eat and a roof over you. 
I hope sincerely that you will do your best to fit your- 
self to your new conditions. I know it is hard, but 
with my lack of experience and my ignorance as to 


22 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


where to take hold, it may be a good many years 
before we can do any better.” 

When Helen Thorpe read this, she cried. Things 
had gone wrong that morning, and an encouraging 
word would have helped her. The somber tone of her 
brother’s communication threw her into a fit of the 
blues from which, for the first time, she saw her sur- 
roundings in a depressing and distasteful light. And 
yet he had written as he did with the kindest possible 
motives. 

Thorpe had the misfortune to be one of those indi- 
viduals who, though careless of what people in gen- 
eral may think of them, are in a corresponding degree 
sensitive to the opinion of the few they love. This 
feeling was further exaggerated by a constitutional 
shrinking from any outward manifestation of the emo- 
tions. As a natural result, he was often thought in- 
different or discouraging when in reality his natural 
affections were at their liveliest. A failure to procure 
for a friend certain favors or pleasures dejected him, 
not only because of that friend’s disappointment, but 
because, also, he imagined the failure earned him a 
certain blame. Blame from his heart’s intimates he 
shrank from. His life outside the inner circles of his 
affections was apt to be so militant and so divorced 
from considerations of amity, that as a matter of 
natural reaction he became inclined to exaggerate the 
importance of small objections, little reproaches, 
slight criticisms from his real friends. Such criticisms 
seemed to bring into a sphere he would have liked to 
keep solely for the mutual reliance of loving kindness, 
something of the hard utilitarianism of the world at 
large. In consequence he gradually came to choose 
the line of least resistance, to avoid instinctively even 
the slightly disagreeable. Perhaps for this reason he 
was never entirely sincere with those he loved. He 
never gave assent to, manifested approval of, or 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


^3 

showed enthusiasm over any plan suggested by them, 
for the reason that he never dared offer a merely prob- 
lematical anticipation. The affair had to be abso- 
lutely certain in his own mind before he ventured to 
admit anyone to the pleasure of looking forward to 
it, — and simply because he so feared the disappoint- 
ment in case anything should go wrong. He did not 
realize that not only is the pleasure of anticipation 
often the best, but that even disappointment, provided 
it happen through excusable causes, strengthens the 
bonds of affection through sympathy. We do not 
want merely results from a friend, — merely finished 
products. We like to be in at the making, even 
though the product spoil. 

This unfortunate tendency, together with his re- 
serve, lent him the false attitude of a rather cold, self- 
centered man, discouraging suggestions at first only 
to adopt them later in the most inexplicable fashion, 
and conferring favors in a ready-made impersonal 
manner which destroyed utterly their quality as favors. 
In reality his heart hungered for the affection which 
this false attitude generally repelled. He threw the 
wet blanket of doubt over warm young enthusiasms 
because his mind worked with a certain deliberateness 
which did not at once permit him to see the prac- 
ticability of the scheme. Later he would approve. 
But by that time, probably, the wet blanket had ef- 
fectually extinguished the glow. You cannot always 
savor your pleasures cold. 

So after the disgrace of his father, Harry Thorpe 
did a great deal of thinking and planning which he 
kept carefully to himself. He considered in turn the 
different occupations to which he could turn his hand, 
and negatived them one by one. Few business firms 
would care to employ the son of as shrewd an embez- 
zler as Henry Thorpe. Finally he came to a decision. 
He communicated this decision to his sister. It would 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


H 

have commended itself more logically to her had she 
been able to follow step by step the considerations that 
had led her brother to it. As the event turned, she 
was forced to accept it blindly. She knew that her 
brother intended going West, but as to his hopes and 
plans she was in ignorance. A little sympathy, a lit- 
tle mutual understanding would have meant a great 
deal to her, for a girl whose mother she but dimly re- 
members, turns naturally to her next of kin. Helen 
Thorpe had always admired her brother, but had 
never before needed him. She had looked upon him 
as strong, self-contained, a little moody. Now the 
tone of his letter caused her to wonder whether he 
were not also a trifle hard and cold. So she wept on 
receiving it, and the tears watered the ground for dis- 
content. 

At the beginning of the row in the smoking car, 
Thorpe laid aside his letter and watched with keen 
appreciation the direct practicality of the trainmen’s 
method. When the bearded man fell before the 
conductor’s blow, he turned to the individual at 
his side. 

“ He knows how to hit, doesn’t he ! ” he observed. 
“ That fellow was knocked well off his feet.” 

“ He does,” agreed the other dryly. 

They fell into a desultory conversation of fits and 
starts. Woodsmen of the genuine sort are never talka- 
tive ; and Thorpe, as has been explained, was consti- 
tutionally reticent. In the course of their disjointed 
remarks Thorpe explained that he was looking for 
work in the woods, and intended, first of all, to try 
the Morrison & Daly camps at Beeson Lake. 

“ Know anything about logging ? ” inquired the 
stranger. 

“ Nothing,” Thorpe confessed. 

“ Ain’t much show for anything but lumber-jacks. 
What did you think of doing? ” 

0 

4 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


25 

“ I don’t know,” said Thorpe, doubtfully. “ I have 
driven horses a good deal; I thought I might drive 
team.” 

The woodsman turned slowly and looked Thorpe 
over with a quizzical eye. Then he faced to the front 
again and spat. 

“ Quite like,” he replied still more dryly. 

The boy’s remark had amused him, and he had 
showed it, as much as he ever showed anything. Ex- 
cepting always the riverman, the driver of a team 
commands the highest wages among out-of-door 
workers. He has to be able to guide his horses by lit- 
tle steps over, through, and around slippery and brist- 
ling difficulties. He must acquire the knack of facing 
them square about in their tracks. He must hold 
them under a control that will throw into their col- 
lars, at command, from five pounds to their full power 
of pull, lasting from five seconds to five minutes. And 
above all, he must be able to keep them out of the 
way of tremendous loads of logs on a road which con- 
stant sprinkling has rendered smooth and glassy, at 
the same time preventing the long tongue from 
sweeping them bodily against leg-breaking debris 
when a curve in the road is reached. It is easier to 
drive a fire engine than a logging team. 

But in spite of the naivete of the remark, the woods- 
man had seen something in Thorpe he liked. Such 
men become rather expert in the reading of character, 
and often in a log shanty you will hear opinions of a 
shrewdness to surprise you. He revised his first in- 
tention to let the conversation drop. 

“ I think M. & D. is rather full up just now,” he 
remarked. “ I’m walkin’-boss there. The roads is 
about all made, and road-making is what a green- 
horn tackles first. They’s more chance earlier in the 
year. But if the Old Fellow ” (he strongly accented 
the first word) “ h’aint nothin’ for you, just ask for 


26 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Tim Shearer, an’ I’ll try to put you on the trail for 
some jobber’s camp.” 

The whistle of the locomotive blew, and the conduc- 
tor appeared in the doorway. 

“ Where’s that fellow’s turkey?” he inquired. 

Several men looked toward Thorpe, who, not under- 
standing this argot of the camps, was a little bewil- 
dered. Shearer reached over his head and took from 
the rack a heavy canvas bag, which he handed to the 
conductor. 

“ That’s the ‘ turkey ’ — ” he explained, “ his war 
bag. Bud’ll throw it off at Scott’s, and Jack’ll get it 
there.” 

“ How far back is he? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ About ten mile. He’ll hoof it in all right.” 

A number of men descended at Scott’s. The three 
who had come into collision with Jimmy and Bud 
were getting noisier. They had produced a stone jug, 
and had collected the remainder of the passengers, — 
with the exception of Shearer and Thorpe, — and now 
were passing the jug rapidly from hand to hand. 
Soon they became musical, striking up one of the 
weird long-drawn-out chants so popular with the 
shanty boy. Thorpe shrewdly guessed his compan- 
ion to be a man of weight, and did not hesitate to 
ascribe his immunity from annoyance to the other’s 
presence. 

“ It’s a bad thing,” said the walking-boss, “ I used 
to be at it myself, and I know. When I wanted 
whisky, I needed it worse than a scalded pup does a 
snow bank. The first year I had a hundred and fifty 
dollars, and I blew her all in six days. Next year I 
had a little more, but she lasted me three weeks. That 
was better. Next year, I says to myself, I’ll just save 
fifty of that stake, and blow the rest. So I did. After 
that I got to be scaler, and sort’ve quit. I just made 
a deal with the Old Fellow to leave my stake with 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 7 

headquarters no matter whether I call for it or not. 
I got quite a lot coming, now.” 

“ Bees’n Lake!” cried Jimmy fiercely through an 
aperture of the door. 

“ You’ll find th’ boardin’-house just across over the 
track,” said the woodsman, holding out his hand, “ so 
long. See you again if you don’t find a job with the 
Old Fellow. My name’s Shearer.” 

“ Mine is Thorpe,” replied the other. “ Thank 
you.” 

The woodsman stepped forward past the carousers 
to the baggage compartment, where he disappeared. 
The revellers stumbled out the other door. 

Thorpe followed and found himself on the frozen 
platform of a little dark railway station. As he 
walked, the boards shrieked under his feet and the 
sharp air nipped at his face and caught his lungs. Be- 
yond the fence-rail protection to the side of the plat- 
form he thought he saw the suggestion of a broad 
reach of snow, a distant lurking forest, a few shadowy 
buildings looming mysterious in the night. The air 
was twinkling with frost and the brilliant stars of the 
north country. 

Directly across the track from the railway station, 
a single building was pricked from the dark by a soli- 
tary lamp in a lower-story room. The four who had 
descended before Thorpe made over toward this 
light, stumbling and laughing uncertainly, so he knew 
it was probably in the boarding-house, and prepared 
to follow them. Shearer and the station agent, — an 
individual much muffled, — turned to the disposition 
of some light freight that had been dropped from the 
baggage car. 

The five were met at the steps by the proprietor of 
the boarding-house. This man was short and stout, 
with a harelip and cleft palate, which at once gave 
him the well-known slurring speech of persons so 


28 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


afflicted, and imparted also to the timbre of his voice 
a peculiarly hollow, resonant, trumpet-like note. He 
stumped about energetically on a wooden leg of home 
manufacture. It was a cumbersome instrument, 
heavy, with deep pine socket for the stump, and a 
projecting brace which passed under a leather belt 
around the man’s waist. This instrument he used 
with the dexterity of a third hand. As Thorpe watched 
him, he drove in a projecting nail, kicked two 
turkeys ” dexterously inside the open door, and 
stuck the armed end of his peg-leg through the top 
and bottom of the whisky jug that one of the new ar- 
rivals had set down near the door. The whisky 
promptly ran out. At this the cripple flirted the im- 
paled jug from the wooden leg far out over the rail 
of the verandah into the snow. 

A growl went up. 

“ What’n hell’s that for ! ” snarled one of the owners 
of the whisky threateningly. 

“ Don’t allow no whisky here,” snuffed the harelip. 

The men were very angry. They advanced toward 
the cripple, who retreated with astonishing agility to 
the lighted room. There he bent the wooden leg be- 
hind him, slipped the end of the brace from beneath 
the leather belt, seized the other, peg end in his right 
hand, and so became possessed of a murderous bludg- 
eon. This he brandished, hopping at the same time 
back and forth in such perfect poise and yet with so 
ludicrous an effect of popping corn, that the men were 
surprised into laughing. 

“ Bully for you, peg-leg ! ” they cried. 

“ Rules ’n regerlations, boys,” replied the latter, 
without, however, a shade of compromising in his 
tones. “ Had supper? ” 

On receiving a reply in the affirmative, he caught 
up the lamp, and, having resumed his artificial leg in 
one deft motion, led the way to narrow little rooms. 


Chapter IV 

r HORPE was awakened a long time before 
daylight by the ringing of a noisy bell. He 
dressed, shivering, and stumbled down stairs 
to a round stove, big as a boiler, into which the cripple 
dumped huge logs of wood from time to time. After 
breakfast Thorpe returned to this stove and sat half 
dozing for what seemed to him untold ages. The cold 
of the north country was initiating him. 

Men came in, smoked a brief pipe, and went out. 
Shearer was one of them. The woodsman nodded 
curtly to the young man, his cordiality quite gone, 
Thorpe vaguely wondered why. After a time he him- 
self put on his overcoat and ventured out into the 
town. It seemed to Thorpe a meager affair, built of 
lumber, mostly unpainted, with always the dark, men- 
acing fringe of the forest behind. The great saw 
mill, with its tall stacks and its row of water-barrels 
— protection against fire — on top, was the dominant 
note. Near the mill crouched a little red-painted 
structure from whose stovepipe a column of white 
smoke rose, attesting the cold, a clear hundred feet 
straight upward, and to whose door a number of men 
were directing their steps through the snow. Over 
the door Thorpe could distinguish the word “ Office.’* 
He followed and entered. 

In a narrow aisle railed off from the main part of 
the room waited Thorpe’s companions of the night 
before. The remainder of the office gave accommo- 
dation to three clerks. One of these glanced up in- 
quiringly as Thorpe came in. 

“ I am looking for work,” said Thorpe. 

29 


3 ° 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ Wait there/’ briefly commanded the clerk. 

In a few moments the door of the inner room 
opened, and Shearer came out. A man’s head peered 
from within. 

“ Come on, boys,” said he. 

The five applicants shuffled through. Thorpe found 
himself in the presence of a man whom he felt to be 
the natural leader of these wild, independent spirits. 
He was already a little past middle life, and his form 
had lost the elastic vigor of youth. But his eye was 
keen, clear, and wrinkled to a certain dry facetious- 
ness; and his figure was of that bulk which gives an 
impression of a subtler weight and power than the 
merely physical. This peculiarity impresses us in 
the portraits of such men as Daniel Webster and 
others of the old jurists. The manner of the man 
was easy, good-natured, perhaps a little facetious, but 
these qualities were worn rather as garments than 
exhibited as characteristics. He could afford them, 
not because he had fewer difficulties to overcome or 
battles to fight than another, but because his strength 
was so sufficient to them that mere battles or diffi- 
culties could not affect the deliberateness of his hu- 
mor. You felt his superiority even when he was most 
comradely with you. This man Thorpe was to meet 
under other conditions, wherein the steel hand would 
more plainly clink the metal. 

He was now seated in a worn office chair before a 
littered desk. In the close air hung the smell of stale 
cigars and the clear fragrance of pine. 

“ What is it, Dennis ? ” he asked the first of the 
men. 

“ I’ve been out,” replied the lumberman. “ Have 
you got anything for me, Mr. Daly ? ” 

The mill-owner laughed. 

“ I guess so. Report to Shearer. Did you vote for 
the right man, Denny ? ” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 1 

The lumberman grinned sheepishly. “ I don’t 
know, sir. I didn’t get that far.” 

“ Better let it alone. I suppose you and Bill want 
to come back, too ? ” he added, turning to the next 
two in the line. “ All right, report to Tim. Do you 
want work ? ” he inquired of the last of the quartette, 
a big bashful man with the shoulders of a Hercules. 

Yes, sir,” answered the latter uncomfortably. 

“ What do you do ? ” 

“ I’m a cant-hook man, sir.” 

“ Where have you worked ? ” 

“ I had a job with Morgan & Stebbins on the Clear 
River last winter.” 

“ All right, we need cant-hook men. Report at 
‘ seven,’ and if they don’t want you there, go to ‘ thir- 
teen.’ ” 

Daly looked directly at the man with an air of 
finality. The lumberman still lingered uneasily, twist- 
ing his cap in his hands. 

“ Anything you want? ” asked Daly at last. 

“ Yes, sir,” blurted the big man. “ If I come down 
here and tell you I want three days off and fifty dol- 
lars to bury my mother, I wish you’d tell me to go to 
hell ! I buried her three times last winter ! ” 

Daly chuckled a little. 

“ All right, Bub,” said he, “ to hell it is.” 

The man went out. Daly turned to Thorpe with 
the last flickers of amusement in his eyes. 

“ What can I do for you ? ” he inquired in a little 
crisper tones. Thorpe felt that he was not treated 
with the same careless familiarity, because, potenti- 
ally, he might be more of a force to deal with. He 
underwent, too, the man’s keen scrutiny, and knew 
that every detail of his appearance had found its com- 
ment in the other’s experienced brain. 

“ I am looking for work,” Thorpe replied. 

“ What kind of work ? ” 


3 2 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ Any kind, so I can learn something about the 
lumber business.” 

The older man studied him keenly for a few mo- 
ments. 

“ Have you had any other business experience ? ” 

“ None.” 

“ What have you been doing? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

The lumberman’s eyes hardened. 

“ We are a very busy firm here,” he said with a 
certain deliberation ; “ we do not carry a big force of 
men in any one department, and each of those men 
has to fill his place and slop some over the sides. We 
do not pretend or attempt to teach here. If you want 
to be a lumberman, you must learn the lumber busi- 
ness more directly than through the windows of a 
bookkeeper’s office. Go into the woods. Learn a 
few first principles. Find out the difference between 
Norway and white pine, anyway.” 

Daly, being what is termed a self-made man, en- 
tertained a prejudice against youths of the leisure 
class. He did not believe in their earnestness of pur- 
pose, their capacity for knowledge, nor their perse- 
verance in anything. That a man of twenty-six 
should be looking for his first situation was incom- 
prehensible to him. He made no effort to conceal 
his prejudice, because the class to which the young 
man had belonged enjoyed his hearty contempt. 

The truth is, he had taken Thorpe’s ignorance a 
little too much for granted. Before leaving his home, 
and while the project of emigration was still in the 
air, the young fellow had, with the quiet enthusiasm 
of men of his habit of mind, applied himself to the 
mastering of whatever the books could teach. That 
is not much. The literature on lumbering seems to 
be singularly limited. Still he knew the trees, and 
had sketched an outline into which to paint expen- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


33 

ence. He said nothing of this to the man before him,' 
because of that strange streak in his nature which 
prompted him to conceal what he felt most strongly ; 
to leave to others the task of guessing out his atti- 
tude ; to stand on appearances without attempting to 
justify them, no matter how simple the justification 
might be. A moment’s frank, straightforward talk 
might have caught Daly’s attention, for the lumber- 
man was, after all, a shrewd reader of character where 
his prejudices were not concerned. Then events 
would have turned out very differently. 

After his speech the business man had whirled back 
to his desk. 

“ Have you anything for me to do in the woods, 
then? ” the other asked quietly. 

“ No,” said Daly over his shoulder. 

Thorpe went out. 

Before leaving Detroit he had, on the advice of 
friends, visited the city office of Morrison & Daly. 
There he had been told positively that the firm were 
hiring men. Now, without five dollars in his pocket, 
he made the elementary discovery that even in chop- 
ping wood skilled labor counts. He did not know 
where to turn next, and he would not have had the 
money to go far in any case. So, although Shearer’s 
brusque greeting that morning had argued a lack of 
cordiality, he resolved to remind the riverman of his 
promised assistance. 

That noon he carried out his resolve. To his sur- 
prise Shearer was cordial — in his way. He came 
afterward to appreciate the subtle nuances of manner 
and treatment by which a boss retains his moral su- 
premacy in a lumber country, — repels that too great 
familiarity which breeds contempt, without imperil- 
ing the trust and comradeship which breeds will- 
ingness. In the morning Thorpe had been a pros- 
pective employee of the firm, and so a possible 


34 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

subordinate of Shearer himself. Now he was Shearer’s 
equal. 

“ Go up and tackle Radway. He’s jobbing for us 
on the Cass Branch. He needs men for roadin’, I 
know, because he’s behind. You’ll get a job there.” 

“ Where is it ? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ Ten miles from here. She’s blazed, but you bet- 
ter wait for th’ supply team, Friday. If you try to 
make her yourself, you’ll get lost on some of th’ old 
loggin’ roads.” 

Thorpe considered. 

“ I’m busted,” he said at last frankly. 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” replied the walking-boss. 
“ Marshall, come here ! ” 

The peg-legged boarding-house keeper stumped in. 

“ What is it ? ” he trumpeted snufflingly. 

“ This boy wants a job till Friday. Then he’s go- 
ing up to Radway’s with the supply team. Now quit 
your hollerin’ for a chore-boy for a few days.” 

“ All right,” snorted Marshall, “ take that ax and 
split some dry wood that you’ll find behind th’ house.” 

“ I’m very much obliged to you,” began Thorpe to 
the walking-boss, “ and ” 

“ That’s all right,” interrupted the latter, “ some 
day you can give me a job.” 


Chapter V 


M. ^OR five days Thorpe cut wood, made fires, 
drew water, swept floors, and ran errands. 
J- Sometimes he would look across the broad 
stump-dotted plain to the distant forest. He had 
imagination. No business man succeeds without it. 
With him the great struggle to wrest from an impass- 
ive and aloof nature what she has so long held secure- 
ly as her own, took on the proportions of a battle. 
The distant forest was the front. To it went the new 
bands of fighters. From it came the caissons for food, 
that ammunition of the frontier; messengers bringing 
tidings of defeat or victory; sometimes men groan- 
ing on their litters from the twisting and crushing and 
breaking inflicted on them by the calm, ruthless en- 
emy ; once a dead man bearing still on his chest the 
mark of the tree that had killed him. Here at head- 
quarters sat the general, map in hand, issuing his 
orders, directing his forces. 

And out of the forest came mystery. Hunters 
brought deer on sledges. Indians, observant and 
grave, swung silently across the reaches on their 
snowshoes, and silently back again carrying their mea- 
ger purchases. In the daytime ravens wheeled and 
croaked about the outskirts of the town, bearing the 
shadow of the woods on their plumes and of the 
north-wind in the somber quality of their voices ; rare 
eagles wheeled gracefully to and fro; snow squalls 
coquetted with the landscape. At night the many 
creatures of the forest ventured out across the plains 
in search of food, — weasels ; big white hares ; deer, 
35 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 6 

planting daintily their little sharp hoofs where the 
frozen turnips were most plentiful ; porcupines in 
quest of anything they could get their keen teeth in- 
to; — and often the big timber wolves would send 
shivering across the waste a long whining howl. And 
in the morning their tracks would embroider the snow 
with many stories. 

The talk about the great stove in the boarding- 
house office also possessed the charm of balsam fra- 
grance. One told the other occult facts about the 
“ Southeast of the southwest of eight.” The second 
in turn vouchsafed information about another point of 
the compass. Thorpe heard of many curious practical 
expedients. He learned that one can prevent awk- 
ward air-holes in lakes by “ tapping ” the ice with an 
ax, — for the air must get out, naturally or artifici- 
ally; that the top log on a load should not be large 
because of the probability, when one side has dumped 
with a rush, of its falling straight down from its orig- 
inal height, so breaking the sleigh ; that a thin slice 
of salt pork well peppered is good when tied about 
a sore throat; that choking a horse will cause him 
to swell up and float on the top of the water, thus 
rendering it easy to slide him out on the ice from 
a hole he may have broken into; that a tree lodged 
against another may be brought to the ground by 
felling a third against it; that snowshoes made of 
caribou hide do not become baggy, because caribou 
shrinks when wet, whereas other rawhide stretches. 
These, and many other things too complicated to 
elaborate here, he heard discussed by expert opinion. 
Gradually he acquired an enthusiasm for the woods, 
just as a boy conceives a longing for the out-of-door 
life of which he hears in the conversation of his elders 
about the winter fire. He became eager to get away 
to the front, to stand among the pines, to grapple with 
the difficulties of thicket, hill, snow, and cold that 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


37 

nature silently interposes between the man and his 
task. 

At the end of the week he received four dollars from 
his employer ; dumped his valise into a low bobsleigh 
driven by a man muffled in a fur coat; assisted in 
loading the sleigh with a variety of things, from 
Spearhead plug to raisins ; and turned his face at last 
toward the land of his hopes and desires. 

The long drive t » camp was at once a delight and a 
misery to him. Its miles stretched longer and longer 
as time went on; and the miles of a route new to a 
man are always one and a half at least. The forest, 
so mysterious and inviting from afar, drew within 
itself coldly when Thorpe entered it. He was as yet a 
stranger. The snow became the prevailing note. The 
white was everywhere, concealing jealously beneath 
rounded uniformity the secrets of the woods. And 
it was cold. First Thorpe's feet became numb, then 
his hands, then his nose was nipped, and finally his 
warm clothes were lifted from him by invisible hands, 
and he was left naked to shivers and tremblings. He 
found it torture to sit still on the top of the bale of 
hay ; and yet he could not bear to contemplate the 
cold shock of jumping from the sleigh to the ground, 
— of touching foot to the chilling snow. The driver 
pulled up to breathe his horses at the top of a hill 5 
and to fasten under one runner a heavy chain, which, 
grinding into the snow, would act as a brake on the 
descent. 

“ You're dressed pretty light," he advised ; “ better 
hoof it a ways and get warm." 

The words tipped the balance of Thorpe’s decision. 
He descended stiffly, conscious of a disagreeable 
shock from a six-inch jump. 

In ten minutes, the wallowing, slipping, and leap- 
ing after the tail of the sled had sent his blood ting- 
ling to the last of his protesting members. Cold with- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


38 

drew. He saw now that the pines were beautiful and 
solemn and still ; and that in the temple of their col- 
umns dwelt winter enthroned. Across the carpet of 
the snow wandered the trails of her creatures, — the 
stately regular prints of the partridge; the series of 
pairs made by the squirrel ; those of the weasel and 
mink, just like the squirrels’ except that the prints 
were not quite side by side, and that between every 
other pair stretched the mark of the animal’s long, 
slender body; the delicate tracery of the deer mouse; 
the fan of the rabbit ; the print of a baby’s hand that 
the raccoon left; the broad pad of a lynx; the dog- 
like trail of wolves ; — these, and a dozen others, all 
equally unknown, gave Thorpe the impression of a 
great mysterious multitude of living things which 
moved about him invisible. In a thicket of cedar and 
scrub willow near the bed of a stream, he encoun- 
tered one of those strangely assorted bands of woods- 
creatures which are always cruising it through the 
country. He heard the cheerful little chickadee ; he 
saw the grave nuthatch with its appearance of a total 
lack of humor ; he glimpsed a black-and-white wood- 
pecker or so, and was reviled by a ribald blue jay. Al- 
ready the wilderness was taking its character to him. 

After a little while, they arrived by way of a hill, 
over which they plunged into the middle of the camp. 
Thorpe saw three large buildings, backed end to 
end, and two smaller ones, all built of heavy logs, 
roofed with plank, and lighted sparsely through one 
or two windows apiece. The driver pulled up opposite 
the space between two of the larger buildings, and be- 
gan to unload his provisions. Thorpe set about aid- 
ing him, and so found himself for the first time in a 
“ cook camp.” 

It was a commodious building, — Thorpe had no 
idea a log structure ever contained so much room. 
One end furnished space for two cooking ranges and 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


39 


two bunks placed one over the other. Along one side 
ran a broad table-shelf, with other shelves over it and 
numerous barrels underneath, all filled with cans, 
loaves of bread, cookies, and pies. The center was 
occupied by four long bench-flanked tables, down 
whose middle straggled utensils containing sugar, 
apple-butter, condiments, and sauces, and whose 
edges were set with tin dishes for about forty men. 
The cook, a rather thin-faced man with a mustache, 
directed where the provisions were to be stowed ; and 
the “ cookee,” a hulking youth, assisted Thorpe and 
the driver to carry them in. During the course of 
the work Thorpe made a mistake. 

“ That stuff doesn’t come here,” objected the 
cookee, indicating a box of tobacco the newcomer 
was carrying. “ She goes to the ‘ van.’ ” 

Thorpe did not know what the “ van ” might be, 
but he replaced the tobacco on the sleigh. In a few 
moments the task was finished, with the exception 
of a half dozen other cases, which the driver desig- 
nated as also for the “ van.” The horses were un- 
hitched, and stabled in the third of the big log build- 
ings. The driver indicated the second. 

“ Better go into the men’s camp and sit down ’till 
th’ boss gets in,” he advised. 

Thorpe entered a dim, over-heated structure, lined 
on two sides by a double tier of large bunks parti- 
tioned from one another like cabins of boats, and cen- 
tered by a huge stove over which hung slender poles. 
The latter were to dry clothes on. Just outside the 
bunks ran a straight hard bench. Thorpe stood at the 
entrance trying to accustom his eyes to the dimness. 

“ Set down,” said a voice, “ on th’ floor if you want 
to; but I’d prefer th’ deacon seat.” 

Thorpe obediently took position on the bench, or 
“ deacon seat.” His eyes, more used to the light, 
could make out a thin, tall, bent old man, with bare 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


40 

cranium, two visible teeth, and a three days’ stubble 
of white beard over his meager, twisted face. 

He caught, perhaps, Thorpe’s surprised expression. 

“You think th’ old man’s no good, do you?” he 
cackled, without the slightest malice, “ looks is de- 
ceivin’ ! ” He sprang up swiftly, seized the toe of his 
right foot in his left hand, and jumped his left foot 
through the loop thus formed. Then he sat down 
again, and laughed at Thorpe’s astonishment. 

“ Old Jackson’s still purty smart,” said he. “ I’m 
barn-boss. They ain’t a man in th’ country knows 
as much about hosses as I do. We ain’t had but two 
sick this fall, an’ between you an’ me, they’s a skate 
lot. You’re a greenhorn, ain’t you?” 

“Yes,” confessed Thorpe. 

“ Well,” said Jackson, reflectively but rapidly, “ Le 
Fabian, he’s quiet but bad; and O’Grady, he talks 
loud but you can bluff him ; and Perry, he’s only bad 
when he gets full of red likker; and Norton he’s bad 
when he gets mad like, and will use axes.” 

Thorpe did not know he was getting valuable points 
on the camp bullies. The old man hitched nearer and 
peered in his face. 

“ They don’t bluff you a bit,” he said, “ unless you 
likes them, and then they can back you way off the 
skidway.” 

Thorpe smiled at the old fellow’s volubility. He 
did not know how near to the truth the woodsman’s 
shrewdness had hit ; for to himself, as to most strong 
characters, his peculiarities were the normal, and 
therefore the unnoticed. His habit of thought in re- 
spect to other people was rather objective than sub- 
jective. He inquired so impersonally the significance 
of whatever was before him, that it lost the human 
quality both as to itself and himself. To him men 
were things. This attitude relieved him of self-con- 
sciousness. He never bothered his head as to what 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


4i 

the other man thought of him, his ignorance, or his 
awkwardness, simply because to him the other man 
was nothing but an element in his problem. So in 
such circumstances he learned fast. Once introduce 
the human element, however, and his absurdly sensi- 
tive self-consciousness asserted itself. He was, as 
Jackson expressed it, backed off the skidway. 

At dark the old man lit two lamps, which served 
dimly to gloze the shadows, and thrust logs of wood 
into the cast-iron stove. Soon after, the men came in. 
They were a queer, mixed lot. Some carried the in- 
disputable stamp of the frontiersman in their bear- 
ing and glance ; others looked to be mere day-labor- 
ers, capable of performing whatever task they were 
set to, and of finding the trail home again. There 
were active, clean-built, precise Frenchmen, with 
small hands and feet, and a peculiarly trim way of 
wearing their rough garments; typical native-born 
American lumber-jacks powerful in frame, rakish in 
air, reckless in manner; big blonde Scandinavians and 
Swedes, strong men at the sawing; an Indian or so, 
strangely in contrast to the rest; and a variety of Irish- 
men, Englishmen, and Canadians. These men tramped 
in without a word, and set busily to work at various 
tasks. Some sat on the “ deacon seat ” and began to 
take off their socks and rubbers; others washed at a 
little wooden sink; still others selected and lit lanterns 
from a pendant row near the window, and followed old 
Jackson out of doors. They were the teamsters. 

“ You’ll find the old man in the office,” said Jack- 
son. 

Thorpe made his way across to the small log cabin 
indicated as the office, and pushed open the door. 
He found himself in a little room containing two 
bunks, a stove, a counter and desk, and a number of 
shelves full of supplies. About the walls hung fire- 
arms, snowshoes, and a variety of clothes. 


42 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


A man sat at the desk placing figures on a sheet of 
paper. He obtained the figures from statistics pen- 
cilled on three thin leaves of beech-wood riveted to- 
gether. In a chair by the stove lounged a bulkier 
figure, which Thorpe concluded to be that of the 
“ old man.” 

“ I was sent here by Shearer,” said Thorpe directly ; 
“ he said you might give me some work.” 

So long a silence fell that the applicant began to 
wonder if his question had been heard. 

“ I might,” replied the man drily at last. 

“Well, will you?” Thorpe inquired, the humor of 
the situation overcoming him. 

“ Have you ever worked in the woods ? ” 

“ No.” 

The man smoked silently. 

“ I’ll put you on the road in the morning,” he con- 
cluded, as though this were the deciding qualification. 

One of the men entered abruptly and approached 
the counter. The writer, at the desk laid aside his 
tablets. 

“ What is it, Albert?” he added. 

“ Jot of chewin’,” was the reply. 

The scaler took from the shelf a long plug of to- 
bacco and cut off two inches. 

“ Ain’t hitting the van much, are you, Albert? ” he 
commented, putting the man’s name and the amount 
in a little book. Thorpe went out, after leaving his 
name for the time book, enlightened as to the method 
of obtaining supplies. He promised himself some 
warm clothing from the van, when he should have 
worked out the necessary credit. 

At supper he learned something else, — that he 
must not talk at table. A moment’s reflection taught 
him the common-sense of the rule. For one thing, 
supper was a much briefer affair than it would have 
been had every man felt privileged to take his will in 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


43 


conversation ; not to speak of the absence of noise 
and the presence of peace. Each man asked for what 
he wanted. 

“ Please pass the beans,” he said with the deliberate 
intonation of a man who does not expect that his re- 
quest will be granted. 

Besides the beans were fried salt pork, boiled pota- 
toes, canned corn, mince pie, a variety of cookies and 
doughnuts, and strong green tea. Thorpe found him- 
self eating ravenously of the crude fare. 

That evening he underwent a catechism, a few prac- 
tical jokes, which he took good-naturedly, and a vast 
deal of chaffing. At nine the lights were all out. By 
daylight he and a dozen other men were at work, hew- 
ing a road that had to be as smooth and level as a 
New York boulevard. 


Chapter VI 

r HORPE and four others were set to work on 
this road, which was to be cut through a creek 
bottom leading, he was told, to “ seventeen.” 
The figures meant nothing to him. Later, each num- 
ber came to possess an individuality of its own. He 
learned to use a double-bitted ax. 

Thorpe’s intelligence was of the practical sort that 
wonderfully helps experience. He watched closely 
one of the older men, and analyzed the relation borne 
by each one of his movements to the object in view. 
In a short time he perceived that one hand and arm 
are mere continuations of the helve, attaching the 
blade of the ax to the shoulder of the wielder; and 
that the other hand directs the stroke. He acquired 
the knack thus of throwing the bit of steel into the 
gash as though it were a baseball on the end of a 
string; and so accomplished power. By experiment 
he learned just when to slide the guiding hand down 
the helve ; and so gained accuracy. He suffered none 
of those accidents so common to new choppers. His 
ax did not twist itself from his hands, nor glance to 
cut his foot. He attained the method of the double 
bit, and how to knock roots by alternate employment 
of the edge and flat. In a few days his hands became 
hard and used to the cold. 

From shortly after daylight he worked. Four 
other men bore him company, and twice Radway him- 
self came by, watched their operations for a moment, 
and moved on without comment. After Thorpe had 
caught his second wind, he enjoyed his task, proving 
44 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


45 

a certain pleasure in the ease with which he handled 
his tool. 

At the end of an interminable period, a faint, mu- 
sical halloo swelled, echoed, and died through the 
forest, beautiful as a spirit. It was taken up by an- 
other voice and repeated. Then by another. Now 
near at hand, now far away it rang as hollow as a 
bell. The sawyers, the swampers, the skidders, and 
the team men turned and put on their heavy blanket 
coats. 

Down on the road Thorpe heard it too, and won- 
dered what it might be. 

“ Come on, Bub ! she means chew ! ” explained old 
man Heath kindly. Old man Heath was a veteran 
woodsman who had come to swamping in his old age. 
He knew the game thoroughly, but could never save 
his “ stake ” when Pat McGinnis, the saloon man, 
enticed him in. Throughout the morning he had 
kept an eye on the newcomer, and was secretly pleased 
in his heart of the professional at the readiness with 
which the young fellow learned. 

Thorpe resumed his coat, and fell in behind the lit- 
tle procession. After a short time he came upon a 
horse and sledge. Beyond it the cookee had built a 
little camp fire, around and over which he had 
grouped big fifty-pound lard-tins, half full of hot 
things to eat. Each man, as he approached, picked 
up a tin plate and cup from a pile near at hand. 

The cookee was plainly master of the situation. He 
issued peremptory orders. When Erickson, the 
blonde Swede, attempted surreptitiously to appropri- 
ate a doughnut, the youth turned on him savagely. 

“ Get out of that, you big tow-head ! ” he cried with 
an oath. 

A dozen Canada jays, fluffy, impatient, perched 
near by or made little short circles over and back. 
They awaited the remains of the dinner. Bob Stratton 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


46 

and a devil-may-care giant by the name of Nolan con- 
structed a joke wherewith to amuse the interim. They 
cut a long pole, and placed it across a log and through 
a bush, so that one extremity projected beyond the 
bush. Then diplomacy won a piece of meat from the 
cookee. This they nailed to the end of the pole by 
means of a pine sliver. The Canada jays gazed on 
the morsel with covetous eyes. When the men had 
retired, they swooped. One big fellow arrived first, 
and lit in defiance of the rest. 

“ Give it to ’im ! ” whispered Nolan, who had been 
watching. 

Bob hit the other end of the pole a mighty whack 
with his ax. The astonished jay, projected straight 
upward by the shock, gave a startled squawk and 
cut a hole through the air for the tall timber. Strat- 
ton and Nolan went into convulsions of laughter. 

“ Get at it ! ” cried the cookee, as though setting a 
pack of dogs on their prey. 

The men ate, perched in various attitudes and 
places. Thorpe found it difficult to keep warm. The 
violent exercise had heated him through, and now 
the north country cold penetrated to his bones. He 
huddled close to the fire, and drank hot tea, but it 
did not do him very much good. In his secret mind 
he resolved to buy one of the blanket mackinaws that 
very evening. He began to see that the costumes of 
each country have their origin in practicality 

That evening he picked out one of the best. As he 
was about to inquire the price, Radway drew the van 
book toward him, inquiring, 

“Let’s see; what’s the name?” 

In an instant Thorpe was charged on the book with 
three dollars and a half, although his work that day 
had earned him less than a dollar. On his way back 
to the men’s shanty he could not help thinking how 
easy it would be for him to leave the next morning 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


47 

two dollars and a half ahead. He wondered if this 
method of procedure obtained in all the camps. 

The newcomer’s first day of hard work had tired 
him completely. He was ready for nothing so much 
as his bunk. But he had forgotten that it was Satur- 
day night. His status was still to assure. 

They began with a few mild tricks. Shuffle the 
Brogan followed Hot Back. Thorpe took all of it 
good-naturedly. Finally a tall individual with a thin 
white face, a reptilian forehead, reddish hair, and long 
baboon arms, suggested tossing in a blanket. Thorpe 
looked at the low ceiling, and declined. 

“ I’m with the game as long as you say, boys,” said 
he, “ and I’ll have as much fun as anybody, but that’s 
going too far for a tired man.” 

The reptilian gentleman let out a string of oaths 
whose meaning might be translated, “ We’ll see about 
that ! ” 

Thorpe was a good boxer, but he knew by now the 
lumber jack’s method of fighting, — anything to 
hurt the other fellow. And in a genuine old-fashioned 
knock -down -and -drag- out rough-and-tumble your 
woodsman is about the toughest customer to handle 
you will be likely to meet. He is brought up on fight- 
ing. Nothing pleases him better than to get drunk 
and, with a few companions, to embark on an earnest 
effort to “ clean out ” a rival town. And he will accept 
cheerfully punishment enough to kill three ordinary 
men. It takes one of his kind really to hurt him. 

Thorpe, at the first hostile movement, sprang back 
to the door, seized one of the three-foot billets of hard- 
wood intended for the stove, and faced his opponents. 

“ I don’t know which of you boys is coming first,” 
said he quietly, “ but he’s going to get it good and 
plenty.” 

If the affair had been serious, these men would 
never have recoiled before the mere danger of a stick 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


48 

of hardwood. The American woodsman is afraid of 
nothing human. But this was a good-natured bit of 
foolery, a test of nerve, and there was no object in 
getting a broken head for that. The reptilian gentle- 
man alone grumbled at the abandonment of the at- 
tack, mumbling something profane. 

“ If you hanker for trouble so much, ,, drawled the 
unexpected voice of old Jackson from the corner, 
“ mebbe you could put on th’ gloves.” 

The idea was acclaimed. Somebody tossed out a 
dirty torn old set of buckskin boxing gloves. 

The rest was farce. Thorpe was built on the true 
athletic lines, broad, straight shoulders, narrow 
flanks, long, clean, smooth muscles. He possessed, 
besides, that hereditary toughness and bulk which no 
gymnasium training will ever quite supply. The 
other man, while powerful and ugly in his rushes, was 
clumsy and did not use his head. Thorpe planted his 
hard straight blows at will. In this game he was as 
manifestly superior as his opponent would probably 
have been had the rules permitted kicking, gouging, 
and wrestling. Finally he saw his opening and let 
out with a swinging pivot blow. The other picked 
himself out of a corner, and drew off the gloves. 
Thorpe’s status was assured. 

A Frenchman took down his fiddle and began to 
squeak. In the course of the dance old Jackson and 
old Heath found themselves together, smoking their 
pipes of Peerless. 

“ The young feller’s all right,” observed Heath ; 
“ he cuffed Ben up to a peak all right.” 

“ Went down like a peck of wet fish-nets,” replied 
Jackson tranquilly. 


Chapter VII 



N the office shanty one evening about a week later, 


Radway and his scaler happened to be talking 


JL over the situation. The scaler, whose name was 
Dyer, slouched back in the shadow, watching his 
great honest superior as a crafty, dainty cat might 
watch the blunderings of a St. Bernard. When he 
spoke, it was with a mockery so subtle as quite to 
escape the perceptions of the lumberman. Dyer had 
a precise little black mustache whose ends he was con- 
stantly twisting into points, black eyebrows, and long 
effeminate black lashes. You would have expected 
his dress in the city to be just a trifle flashy, not 
enough so to be loud, but sinning as to the trifles of 
good taste. The two men conversed in short elliptical 
sentences, using many technical terms. 

“ That * seventeen ’ white pine is going to under- 
run,” said Dyer. “ It won’t skid over three hundred 
thousand.” 

“ It’s small stuff,” agreed Radway, “ and so much 
the worse for us; but the Company’ll stand in on it 
because small stuff like that always over-runs on the 
mill-cut.” 

The scaler nodded comprehension. 

“ When you going to dray-haul that Norway across 
Pike Lake?” 

“ To-morrow. She’s springy, but the books say five 
inches of ice will hold a team, and there’s more than 
that. How much are we putting in a day, now ? ” 

“ About forty thousand.” 


49 


5o 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Radway fell silent. 

“ That’s mighty little for such a crew,” he observed 
at last, doubtfully. 

“ I always said you were too easy with them. You 
got to drive them more.” 

“ Well, it’s a rough country,” apologized Radway, 
trying, as was his custom, to find excuses for the other 
party as soon as he was agreed with in his blame, 
“ there’s any amount of potholes ; and, then, we’ve 
had so much snow the ground ain’t really froze under- 
neath. It gets pretty soft in some of them swamps. 
Can’t figure on putting up as much in this country 
as we used to down on the Muskegon.” 

The scaler smiled a thin smile all to himself behind 
the stove. Big John Radway depended so much on 
the moral effect of approval or disapproval by those 
with whom he lived. It amused Dyer to withhold the 
timely word, so leaving the jobber to flounder be- 
tween his easy nature and his sense of what should 
be done. 

Dyer knew perfectly well that the work was behind, 
and he knew the reason. For some time the men 
had been relaxing their efforts. They had worked 
honestly enough, but a certain snap and vim had 
lacked. This was because Radway had been too easy 
on them. 

Your true lumber-jack adores of all things in crea- 
tion a man whom he feels to be stronger than him- 
self. If his employer is big enough to drive him, then 
he is willing to be driven to the last ounce of his 
strength. But once he gets the notion that his 
“ boss ” is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his 
health, he loses interest in working for that man. So 
a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little 
leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, 
a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken 
as so many indications of a desire to conciliate. And 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


5 > 


conciliation means weakness every time. Your lum- 
ber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong 
man to another. As you value your authority, the 
love of your men, and the completion of your work, 
keep a bluff brow and an unbending singleness of 
purpose. 

Radway’s peculiar temperament rendered him 
liable to just this mistake. It was so much easier for 
him to do the thing himself than to be harsh to the 
point of forcing another to it, that he was inclined to 
take the line of least resistance when it came to a 
question of even ordinary diligence. He sought often 
in his own mind excuses for dereliction in favor of a 
man who would not have dreamed of seeking them 
for himself. A good many people would call this 
kindness of heart. Perhaps it was ; the question is a 
little puzzling. But the facts were as stated. 

Thorpe had already commented on the feeling 
among the men, though, owing to his inexperience, 
he was not able to estimate its full value. The men 
were inclined to a semi-apologetic air when they 
spoke of their connection with the camp. Instead of 
being honored as one of a series of jobs, this seemed 
to be considered as merely a temporary halting-place 
in which they took no pride, and from which they 
looked forward in anticipation or back in memory to 
better things. 

“ Old Shearer, he's the bully boy,” said Bob Strat- 
ton. “ I remember when he was foreman for M. & 
D. at Camp O. Say, we did hustle them saw-logs in ! 
I should rise to remark! Out in th’ woods by first 
streak o' day. I recall one mornin’ she was pretty 
cold, an’ the boys grumbled some about turnin’ out. 
* Cold,’ says Tim, ‘ you sons of guns! You got your 
ch’ice. It may be too cold for you in the woods, but 
it’s a damm sight too hot fer you in hell, an’ you’re 
going to one or the other 1 ’ And he meant it toe. 


52 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

Them was great days ! Forty million a year, and not 
a hitch.” 

One man said nothing in the general discussion. 
It was his first winter in the woods, and plainly in 
the eyes of the veterans this experience did not count. 
It was a faute de mieux , in which one would give an 
honest day’s work, and no more. 

As has been hinted, even the inexperienced new- 
comer noticed the lack of enthusiasm, of unity. Had 
he known the loyalty, devotion, and adoration that a 
thoroughly competent man wins from his “ hands,” 
the state of affairs would have seemed even more sur- 
prising. The lumber-jack will work sixteen, eigh- 
teen hours a day, sometimes up to the waist in water 
full of floating ice ; sleep wet on the ground by a lit- 
tle fire ; and then next morning will spring to work 
at daylight with an “ Oh, no, not tired ; just a little 
stiff, sir! ” in cheerful reply to his master’s inquiry, 

— for the right man ! Only it must be a strong man, 

— with the strength of the wilderness in his eye. 

The next morning Radway transferred Molly and 

Jenny, with little Fabian Laveque and two of the 
younger men, to Pike Lake. There, earlier in the sea- 
son, a number of pines had been felled out on the 
ice, cut in logs, and left in expectation of ice thick 
enough to bear the travoy “ dray.” Owing to the 
fact that the shores of Pike Lake were extremely pre- 
cipitous, it had been impossible to travoy the logs up 
over the hill. 

Radway had sounded carefully the thickness of the 
ice with an ax. Although the weather had of late 
been sufficiently cold for the time of year, the snow, 
as often happens, had fallen before the temperature. 
Under the warm white blanket, the actual freezing 
had been slight. However, there seemed to be at least 
eight inches of clear ice, which would suffice. 

Some of the logs in question were found to be half 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


53 

imbedded in the ice. It became necessary first of all 
to free them. Young Henrys cut a strong bar six or 
eight feet long, while Pat McGuire chopped a hole 
alongside the log. Then one end of the bar was thrust 
into the hole, the logging chain fastened to the other ; 
and, behold, a monster lever, whose fulcrum was the 
ice and whose power was applied by Molly, hitched 
to the end of the chain. In this simple manner a 
task was accomplished in five minutes which would 
have taken a dozen men an hour. When the log had 
been cat-a-cornered from its bed, the chain was fas- 
tened around one end by means of the ever-useful 
steel swamp-hook, and it was yanked across the dray. 
Then the travoy took its careful way across the ice 
to where a dip in the shore gave access to a skidway. 

Four logs had thus been safely hauled. The fifth 
was on its journey across the lake. Suddenly without 
warning, and with scarcely a sound, both horses sank 
through the ice, which bubbled up around them and 
over their backs in irregular rotted pieces. Little 
Fabian Laveque shouted, and jumped down from his 
log. Pat McGuire and young Henrys came running. 

The horses had broken through an air-hole, about 
which the ice was strong. Fabian had already seized 
Molly by the bit, and was holding her head easily 
above water. 

“ Kitch Jenny by dat he’t ! ” he cried to Pat. 

Thus the two men, without exertion, sustained the 
noses of the team above the surface. The position 
demanded absolutely no haste, for it could have been 
maintained for a good half hour. Molly and Jenny, 
their soft eyes full of the intelligence of the situation, 
rested easily in full confidence. But Pat and Henrys, 
new to this sort of emergency, were badly frightened 
and excited. To them the affair had come to a dead- 
lock. 

“ Oh, Lord ! ” cried Pat, clinging desperately to 


54 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Jenny’s headpiece. “ What will we’z be doin’? We 
can’t niver haul them two horses on the ice.” 

“ Tak’ de log-chain,” said Fabian to Henrys, “ an’ 
tie him around de nec’ of Jenny.” 

Henrys, after much difficulty and nervous fumbling, 
managed to loosen the swamp-hook ; and after much 
more difficulty and nervous fumbling succeeded in 
making it fast about the gray mare’s neck. Fabian 
intended with this to choke the animal to that pe- 
culiar state when she would float like a balloon on the 
water, and two men could with ease draw her over 
the edge of the ice. Then the unexpected happened. 

The instant Henrys had passed the end of the chain 
through the knot, Pat, possessed by some Hibernian 
notion that now all was fast, let go of the bit. Jenny’s 
head at once went under, and the end of the logging 
chain glided over the ice and fell plump in the hole. 

Immediately all was confusion. Jenny kicked and 
struggled, churning the water, throwing it about, 
kicking out in every direction. Once a horse’s head 
dips strongly, the game is over. No animal drowns 
more quickly. The two young boys scrambled away, 
and French oaths could not induce them to approach. 
Molly, still upheld by Fabian, looked at him piteously 
with her strange intelligent eyes, holding herself mo- 
tionless and rigid with complete confidence in this 
master who had never failed her before. Fabian dug 
his heels into the ice, but could not hang on. The 
drowning horse was more than a dead weight. Pres- 
ently it became a question of letting go or being 
dragged into the lake on top of the animals. With a 
sob the little Frenchman relinquished his hold. The 
water seemed slowly to rise and over-film the troubled 
look of pleading in Molly’s eyes. 

“ Assassins ! ” hissed Laveque at the two unfortu- 
nate youths. That was all. 

When the surface of the waters had again mirrored 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


55 


the clouds, they hauled the carcasses out on the ice 
and stripped the harness. Then they rolled the log 
from the dray, piled the tools on it, and took their way 
to camp. In the blue of the winter’s sky was a single 
speck. 

The speck grew. Soon it swooped. With a hoarse 
croak it lit on the snow at a wary distance, and began 
to strut back and forth. Presently, its suspicions at 
rest, the raven advanced, and with eager beak began 
its dreadful meal. By this time another, which had 
seen the first one’s swoop, was in view through the 
ether; then another; then another. In an hour the 
brotherhood of ravens, thus telegraphically notified, 
was at feast. 


Chapter VIII 

"M 1ABIAN LAVEQUE elaborated the details of 

Ay the catastrophe with volubility. 

# “Hee’s not fonny dat she bre’ks t’rough,” he 

said. “ I ’ave see dem bre’k t’rough two, free tam 
in de day, but nevaire dat she get drown ! W’en dose 
dam-fool can’t fink wit’ hees haid — sacre Dieu! eet 
is so easy, to chok’ dat cheval — she make me cry 
wit’ de eye! ” 

“ I suppose it was a good deal my fault,” com- 
mented Radway, doubtfully shaking his head, after 
Laveque had left the office. “ I ought to have been 
surer about the ice.” 

“ Eight inches is a little light, with so much snow 
atop,” remarked the scaler carelessly. 

By virtue of that same careless remark, however, 
Radway was so confirmed in his belief as to his own 
culpability that he quite overlooked Fabian’s just 
contention — that the mere thinness of the ice was 
in reality no excuse for the losing of the horses. So 
Pat and Henrys were not discharged — were not in- 
structed to “ get their time.” Fabian Laveque 
promptly demanded his. 

“ Sacre bleu! ” said he to old Jackson. “ I no work 
wid dat dam-fool dat no t’ink wit’ hees haid.” 

This deprived the camp at once of a teamster and a 
team. When you reflect that one pair of horses takes 
care of the exertions of a crew of sawyers, several 
swampers, and three or four cant-hook men, you will 
readily see what a serious derangement their loss 
would cause. And besides, the animals themselves 
56 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


57 


are difficult to replace. They are big strong beasts, 
selected for their power, staying qualities, and intelli- 
gence, worth anywhere from three to six hundred dol- 
lars a pair. They must be shipped in from a distance. 
And, finally, they require a very careful and patient 
training before they are of value in co-operating with 
the nicely adjusted efforts necessary to place the saw- 
log where it belongs. Ready-trained horses are never 
for sale during the season. 

Radway did his best. He took three days to search 
out a big team of farm horses. Then it became neces- 
sary to find a driver. After some deliberation he de- 
cided to advance Bob Stratton to the post, that 
“ decker ” having had more or less experience the 
year before. Erickson, the Swede, while not a star 
cant-hook man, was nevertheless sure and reliable. 
Radway placed him in Stratton’s place. But now he 
must find a swamper. He remembered Thorpe. 

So the young man received his first promotion 
toward the ranks of skilled labor. He gained at last 
a field of application for the accuracy he had so in- 
telligently acquired while road-making, for now a 
false stroke marred a saw-log; and besides, what was 
more to his taste, he found himself near the actual 
scene of operation, at the front, as it were. He had 
under his very eyes the process as far as it had been 
carried. 

In his experience here he made use of the same 
searching analytical observation that had so quickly 
taught him the secret of the ax-swing. He knew that 
each of the things he saw, no matter how trivial, was 
either premeditated or the product of chance. If pre- 
meditated, he tried to find out its reason for being. 
If fortuitous, he wished to know the fact, and always 
attempted to figure out the possibility of its elimina- 
tion. 

So he learned why and when the sawyers threw a 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


58 

tree up or down hill ; how much small standing tim- 
ber they tried to fell it through; what consideration 
held for the cutting of different lengths of log; how 
the timber was skilfully decked on the skids in such 
a manner that the pile should not bulge and fall, and 
so that the scaler could easily determine the opposite 
ends of the same log; — in short, a thousand and one 
little details which ordinarily a man learns only as the 
exigencies arise to call in experience. Here, too, he 
first realized he was in the firing line. 

Thorpe had assigned him as bunk mate the young 
fellow who assisted Tom Broadhead in the felling. 
Henry Paul was a fresh-complexioned, clear-eyed, 
quick-mannered young fellow with an air of steady 
responsibility about him. He came from the southern 
part of the State, where, during the summer, he 
worked on a little homestead farm of his own. After 
a few days he told Thorpe that he was married, and 
after a few days more he showed his bunk mate the 
photograph of a sweet-faced young woman who 
looked trustingly out of the picture. 

“ She’s waitin’ down there for me, and it ain’t so 
very long till spring,” said Paul wistfully. “ She’s 
the best little woman a man ever had, and there ain’t 
nothin’ too good for her, chummy ! ” 

Thorpe, soul-sick after his recent experiences with 
the charity of the world, discovered a real pleasure in 
this fresh, clear passion. As he contemplated the 
abounding health, the upright carriage, the sparkling, 
bubbling spirits of the young woodsman, he could 
easily imagine the young girl and the young happi- 
ness, too big for a little backwoods farm. 

Three days after the newcomer had started in at the 
swamping, Paul, during their early morning walk 
.from camp to the scene of their operations, confided 
in him further. 

“ Got another letter, chummy,” said he, “ come in 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


59 

yesterday. She tells me/’ he hesitated with a blush, 
and then a happy laugh, “ that they ain’t going to be 
only two of us at the farm next year.” 

“ You mean ! ” queried Thorpe. 

“ Yes,” laughed Paul, “ and if it’s a girl she gets 
named after her mother, you bet.” 

The men separated. In a moment Thorpe found 
himself waist-deep in the pitchy aromatic top of an old 
bull-sap, clipping away at the projecting branches. 
After a time he heard Paul’s gay halloo. 

“ Timber! ” came the cry, and then the swish-sh-sh, 
— crash! of the tree’s fall. 

Thorpe knew that now either Hank or Tom must 
be climbing with the long measuring pole along the 
prostrate trunk, marking by means of shallow ax-clips 
where the saw was to divide the logs. Then Tom 
shouted something unintelligible. The other men 
seemed to understand, however, for they dropped 
their work and ran hastily in the direction of the voice. 
Thorpe, after a moment’s indecision, did the same. 
He arrived to find a group about a prostrate man. 
The man was Paul. 

Two of the older woodsmen, kneeling, were con- 
ducting coolly a hasty examination. At the front 
every man is more or less of a surgeon. 

“ Is he hurt badly ? ” asked Thorpe ; “ what is it ? ” 

“ He’s dead,” answered one of the other men 
soberly. 

With the skill of ghastly practice some of them wove 
a litter on which the body was placed. The pathetic 
little procession moved in the solemn, inscrutable 
forest. 

When the tree had fallen it had crashed through 
the top of another, leaving suspended in the branches 
of the latter a long heavy limb. A slight breeze dis- 
lodged it. Henry Paul was impaled as by a javelin. 

This is the chief of the many perils of the woods. 


6o 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Like crouching pumas the instruments of a man’s 
destruction poise on the spring, sometimes for days. 
Then swiftly, silently, the leap is made. It is a danger 
unavoidable, terrible, ever-present. Thorpe was des- 
tined in time to see men crushed and mangled in a 
hundred ingenious ways by the saw log, knocked into 
space and a violent death by the butts of trees, 
ground to powder in the mill of a jam, but never 
would he be more deeply impressed than by this 
ruthless silent taking of a life. The forces of nature 
are so tame, so simple, so obedient ; and in the next 
instant so absolutely beyond human control or direc- 
tion, so whirlingly contemptuous of puny human ef- 
fort, that in time the wilderness shrouds itself to our 
eyes in the same impenetrable mystery as the sea. 

That evening the camp was unusually quiet. Tal- 
ker let his fiddle hang. After supper Thorpe was ap- 
proached by Purdy, the reptilian red-head with whom 
he had had the row some evenings before. 

“You in, chummy?” he asked in a quiet voice. 
“ It’s a five apiece for Hank’s woman.” 

“ Yes,” said Thorpe. 

The men were earning from twenty to thirty dollars 
a month. They had, most of them, never seen Hank 
Paul before this autumn. He had not, mainly because 
of his modest disposition, enjoyed any extraordinary 
degree of popularity. Yet these strangers cheerfully, 
as a matter of course, gave up the proceeds of a week’s 
hard work, and that without expecting the slightest 
personal credit. The money was sent “ from the 
boys.” Thorpe later read a heart-broken letter of 
thanks to the unknown benefactors. It touched him 
deeply, and he suspected the other men of the same 
emotions, but by that time they had regained the in- 
dependent, self-contained poise of the frontiersman. 
They read it with unmoved faces, and tossed it aside 
with a more than ordinarily rough joke or oath. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


61 


Thorpe understood their reticence. It was a part of 
his own nature. He felt more than ever akin to these 
men. 

As swamper he had more or less to do with a cant- 
hook in helping the teamsters roll the end of the log 
on the little “ dray/’ He soon caught the knack. 
Towards Christmas he had become a fairly efficient 
cant-hook man, and was helping roll the great sticks 
of timber up the slanting skids. Thus always intelli- 
gence counts, especially that rare intelligence which 
resolves into the analytical and the minutely observ- 
ing. 

On Sundays Thorpe fell into the habit of accom- 
panying old Jackson Hines on his hunting expedi- 
tions. The ancient had been raised in the woods. He 
seemed to know by instinct the haunts and habits of 
all the wild animals, just as he seemed to know by 
instinct when one of his horses was likely to be trou- 
bled by the colic. His woodcraft was really remark- 
able. 

So the two would stand for hours in the early morn- 
ing and late evening waiting for deer on the edges 
of the swamps. They haunted the runways during 
the middle of the day. On soft moccasined feet they 
stole about in the evening with a bull’s-eye lantern 
fastened on the head of one of them for a “ jack.” 
Several times they surprised the wolves, and shone 
the animals’ eyes like the scattered embers of a camp 
fire. 

Thorpe learned to shoot at a deer’s shoulders rather 
than his heart, how to tell when the animal had sus- 
tained a- mortal hurt from the way it leaped and the 
white of its tail. He even made progress in the dif- 
ficult art of still hunting, where the man matches his 
senses against those of the creatures of the forest, — 
and sometimes wins. He soon knew better than to 
cut the animal’s throat, and learned from Hines that 


62 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


a single stab at a certain point of the chest was much 
better for the purposes of bleeding. And, what is 
more, he learned not to over-shoot down hill. 

Besides these things Jackson taught him many 
other, minor, details of woodcraft. Soon the young 
man could interpret the thousands of signs, so insig- 
nificant in appearance and so important in reality, 
which tell the history of the woods. He acquired the 
knack of winter fishing. 

These Sundays were perhaps the most nearly per- 
fect of any of the days of that winter. In them the 
young man drew more directly face to face with the 
wilderness. He called a truce with the enemy; and 
in return that great inscrutable power poured into his 
heart a portion of her grandeur. His ambition grew ; 
and, as always with him, his determination became 
the greater and the more secret. In proportion as his 
ideas increased, he took greater pains to shut them in 
from expression. For failure in great things would 
bring keener disappointment than failure in little. 

He was getting just the experience and the knowl- 
edge he needed ; but that was about all. His wages 
were twenty-five dollars a month, which his van bill 
would reduce to the double eagle. At the end of the 
winter he would have but a little over a hundred 
dollars to show for his season’s work, and this could 
mean at most only fifty dollars for Helen. But the 
future was his. He saw now more plainly what he 
had dimly perceived before, that for the man who 
buys timber, and logs it well, a sure future is waiting. 
And in this camp he was beginning to learn from 
failure the conditions of success. 


Chapter IX 

r HEY finished cutting on section seventeen 
during Thorpe’s second week. It became nec- 
essary to begin on section fourteen, which lay 
two miles to the east. In that direction the character 
of the country changed somewhat. 

The pine there grew thick on isolated “ islands ” of 
not more than an acre or so in extent, — little knolls 
rising from the level of a marsh. In ordinary condi- 
tions nothing would have been easier than to have 
ploughed roads across the frozen surface of this 
marsh. The peculiar state of the weather interposed 
tremendous difficulties. 

The early part of autumn had been characterized by 
a heavy snow-fall immediately after a series of mild 
days. A warm blanket of some thickness thus over- 
laid the earth, effectually preventing the freezing 
which subsequent cold weather would have caused. 
All the season Radway had contended with this con- 
dition. Even in the woods, muddy swamp and 
spring-holes caused endless difficulty and necessitated 
a great deal of “ corduroying,” or the laying of poles 
side by side to form an artificial bottom. Here in the 
open some six inches of water and unlimited mud 
awaited the first horse that should break through the 
layer of snow and thin ice. Between each pair of 
islands a road had to be “ tramped.” 

Thorpe and the rest were put at this disagreeable 
job. All day long they had to walk mechanically back 
and forth on diagonals between the marks set by Rad- 
63 


64 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


way with his snowshoes. Early in the morning their 
feet were wet by icy water, for even the light weight 
of a man sometimes broke the frozen skin of the 
marsh. By night a road of trampled snow, of greater 
or less length, was marked out across the expanse. 
Thus the blanket was thrown back from the warm 
earth, and thus the cold was given a chance at the 
water beneath. In a day or so the road would bear 
a horse. A bridge of ice had been artificially con- 
structed, on either side of which lay unsounded depths. 
This road was indicated by a row of firs stuck in the 
snow on either side. 

It was very cold. All day long the restless wind 
swept across the shivering surface of the plains, and 
tore around the corners of the islands. The big woods 
are as good as an overcoat. The overcoat had been 
taken away. 

When the lunch-sleigh arrived, the men huddled 
shivering in the lee of one of the knolls, and tried to 
eat with benumbed fingers before a fire that was but 
a mockery. Often it was nearly dark before their 
work had warmed them again. All of the skidways 
had to be placed on the edges of the islands them- 
selves, and the logs had to be travoyed over the steep 
little knolls. A single misstep out on to the plain 
meant a mired horse. Three times heavy snows ob- 
literated the roads, so that they had to be ploughed 
out before the men could go to work again. It was 
a struggle. 

Radway was evidently worried. He often paused 
before a gang to inquire how they were “ making it.” 
He seemed afraid they might wish to quit, which was 
indeed the case, but he should never have taken be- 
fore them any attitude but that of absolute confidence 
in their intentions. His anxiety was natural, however. 
He realized the absolute necessity of skidding and 
hauling this job before the heavy choking snows of 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


the latter part of January should make it impossible 
to keep the roads open. So insistent was this necessity 
that he had seized the first respite in the phenomenal 
snow-fall of the early autumn to begin work. The 
cutting in the woods could wait. 

Left to themselves, probably the men would never 
have dreamed of objecting to whatever privations the 
task carried with it. Radway’s anxiety for their com- 
fort, however, caused them finally to imagine that 
perhaps they might have some just grounds for com- 
plaint after all. That is a great trait of the lumber- 
jack. 

But Dyer, the scaler, finally caused the outbreak. 
Dyer was an efficient enough man in his way, but he 
loved his own ease. His habit was to stay in his 
bunk of mornings until well after daylight. To this 
there could be no objection — except on the part of 
the cook, who was supposed to attend to his business 
himself — for the scaler was active in his work, when 
once he began it, and could keep up with the skid- 
ding. But now he displayed a strong antipathy to 
the north wind on the plains. Of course he could not 
very well shirk the work entirely, but he did a good 
deal of talking on the very cold mornings. 

“ I don’t pose for no tough son-of-a-gun,” said he 
to Radway, “ and I’ve got some respect for my ears 
and feet. She’ll warm up a little by to-morrow, and 
perhaps the wind’ll die. I can catch up on you fel- 
lows by hustling a little, so I guess I’ll stay in and 
work on the books to-day.” 

“ All right,” Radway assented, a little doubtfully. 

This happened perhaps two days out of the week. 
Finally Dyer hung out a thermometer, which he used 
to consult. The men saw it, and consulted it too. At 
once they felt much colder. 

“ She was stan’ ten below,” sputtered Baptiste Tel- 
lier, the Frenchman who played the fiddle. “ He 


66 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

freeze t’rou to hees eenside. Dat is too cole for mak* 
de work.” 

“ Them plains is sure a holy fright,” assented 
Purdy. 

“ Th’ old man knows it himself,” agreed big Nolan ; 
“ did you see him rammin’ around yesterday askin' 
us if we found her too cold ? He knows damn well he 
ought not to keep a man out that sort o’ weather.” 

“ You’d shiver like a dog in a briar path on a warm 
day in July,” said Jackson Hines contemptuously. 

“Shut up!” said they. “You’re barn-boss. You 
don’t have to be out in th’ cold.” 

This was true. So Jackson’s intervention went for 
a little worse than nothing. 

“ It ain’t lak’ he has nuttin’ besides,” went on Bap- 
tiste. “ He can mak’ de cut in de meedle of de fores’.” 

“ That’s right,” agreed Bob Stratton, “ they’s the 
west half of eight ain’t been cut yet.” 

So they sent a delegation to Radway. Big Nolan 
was the spokesman. 

“ Boss,” said he bluntly, “ she’s too cold to work 
on them plains to-day. She’s the coldest day we had.” 

Radway was too old a hand at the business to make 
any promises on the spot. 

“ I’ll see, boys,” said he. 

When the breakfast was over the crew were set to 
making skidways and travoy roads on eight. This 
was a precedent. In time the work on the plains was 
grumblingly done in any weather. However, as to 
this Radway proved firm enough. He was a good 
fighter when he knew he was being imposed on. A 
man could never cheat or defy him openly without 
collecting a little war that left him surprised at the 
jobber’s belligerency. The doubtful cases, those on 
the subtle line of indecision, found him weak. He 
could be so easily persuaded that he was in the wrong. 
At times it even seemed that he was anxious to be 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 67 

proved at fault, so eager was he to catch fairly the 
justice of the other man’s attitude. He held his men 
inexorably and firmly to their work on the indispu- 
tably comfortable days; but gave in often when an 
able-bodied woodsman should have seen in the 
weather no inconvenience, even. As the days slipped 
by, however, he tightened the reins. Christmas was 
approaching. An easy mathematical computation re- 
duced the question of completing his contract with 
Morrison & Daly to a certain weekly quota. In fact 
he was surprised at the size of it. He would have to 
work diligently and steadily during the rest of the 
winter. 

Having thus a definite task to accomplish in a defi- 
nite number of days, Radway grew to be more of a 
taskmaster. His anxiety as to the completion of the 
work overlaid his morbidly sympathetic human in- 
terest. Thus he regained to a small degree the respect 
of his men. Then he lost it again. 

One morning he came in from a talk with the sup- 
ply-teamster, and woke Dyer, who was not yet up. 

“ I’m going down home for two or three weeks,” 
he announced to Dyer, “ you know my address. 
You’ll have to take charge, and I guess you’d better 
let the scaling go. We can get the tally at the bank- 
ing grounds when we begin to haul. Now we ain’t 
got all the time there is, so you want to keep the boys 
at it pretty well.” 

Dyer twisted the little points of his mustache. “ All 
right, sir,” said he with his smile so inscrutably inso- 
lent that Radway never saw the insolence at all. He 
thought this a poor year for a man in Radway’s posi- 
tion to spend Christmas with his family, but it was 
none of his business. 

“ Do as much as you can in the marsh, Dyer,” went 
on the jobber. “ I don’t believe it’s really necessary 
to lay off any more there on account of the weather. 


68 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

We’ve simply got to get that job in before the big 
snows.” 

“ All right, sir,” repeated Dyer. 

The scaler did what he considered his duty. All 
day long he tramped back and forth from one gang 
of men to the other, keeping a sharp eye on the details 
of the work. His practical experience was sufficient 
to solve readily such problems of broken tackle, ex- 
tra expedients, or facility which the days brought 
forth. The fact that in him was vested the power to 
discharge kept the men at work. 

Dyer was in the habit of starting for the marsh an 
hour or so after sunrise. The crew, of course, were 
at work by daylight. Dyer heard them often through 
his doze, just as he heard the chore-boy come in to 
build the fire and fill the water pail afresh. After a 
time the fire, built of kerosene and pitchy jack pine, 
would get so hot that in self-defense he would arise 
and dress. Then he would breakfast leisurely. 

Thus he incurred the enmity of the cook and 
cookee. Those individuals have to prepare food three 
times a day for a half hundred heavy eaters ; besides 
which, on sleigh-haul, they are supposed to serve a 
breakfast at three o’clock for the loaders and a variety 
of lunches up to midnight for the sprinkler men. As 
a consequence, they resent infractions of the little sys- 
tem they may have been able to introduce. 

Now the business of a foreman is to be up as soon 
as anybody. He does none of the work himself, but 
he must see that somebody else does it, and does it 
well. For this he needs actual experience at the work 
itself, but above all zeal and constant presence. He 
must know how a thing ought to be done, and he 
must be on hand unexpectedly to see how its accom- 
plishment is progressing. Dyer should have been out 
of bed at first horn-blow. 

One morning he slept until nearly ten o’clock. It 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


69 

was inexplicable! He hurried from his bunk, made 
a hasty toilet, and started for the dining-room to get 
some sort of a lunch to do him until dinner time. As 
he stepped from the door of the office he caught sight 
of two men hurrying from the cook camp to the men’s 
camp. He thought he heard the hum of conversation 
in the latter building. The cookee set hot coffee be- 
fore him. For the rest, he took what he could find 
cold on the table. 

On an inverted cracker box the cook sat reading an 
old copy of the Police Gazette. Various fifty-pound 
lard tins were bubbling and steaming on the range. 
The cookee divided his time between them and the 
task of sticking on the log walls pleasing patterns 
made of illustrations from cheap papers and the gaudy 
labels of canned goods. Dyer sat down, feeling, for 
the first time, a little guilty. This was not because 
of a sense of a dereliction in duty, but because he 
feared the strong man’s contempt for inefficiency. 

“ I sort of pounded my ear a little long this morn- 
ing,” he remarked with an unwonted air of bonhomie. 

The cook creased his paper with one hand and went 
on reading; the little action indicating at the same 
time that he had heard, but intended to vouchsafe no 
attention. The cookee continued his occupations. 

“ I suppose the men got out to the marsh on time,” 
suggested Dyer, still easily. 

The cook laid aside his paper and looked the scaler 
in the eye. 

“You’re the foreman; I’m the cook,” said he. 
“ You ought to know.” 

The cookee had paused, the paste brush in his hand. 

Dyer was no weakling. The problem presenting, 
he rose to the emergency. Without another word he 
pushed back his coffee cup and crossed the narrow 
open passage to the men’s camp 

When he opened the door a silence fell. He could 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


70 

see dimly that the room was full of lounging and 
smoking lumbermen. As a matter of fact, not a man 
had stirred out that morning. This was more for the 
sake of giving Dyer a lesson than of actually shirking 
the work, for a lumber-jack is honest in giving his 
time when it is paid for. 

“How’s this, men!” cried Dyer sharply; “why 
aren’t you out on the marsh? ” 

No one answered for a minute. Then Baptiste: 

“ He mak’ too tarn cole for de marsh. Meester 
Radway he spik dat we kip off dat marsh w’en he 
mak’ cole.” 

Dyer knew that the precedent was indisputable. 

“Why didn’t you cut on eight then?” he asked, 
still in peremptory tones. 

“ Didn’t have no one to show us where to begin,” 
drawled a voice in the corner. 

Dyer turned sharp on his heel and went out. 

“ Sore as a boil, ain’t he! ” commented old Jackson 
Hines with a chuckle. 

In the cook camp Dyer was saying to the cook, 
“ Well, anyway, we’ll have dinner early and get a 
good start for this afternoon.” 

The cook again laid down his paper. “ I’m tend- 
ing to this job of cook,” said he, “ and I’m getting 
the meals on time. Dinner will be on time to-day — 
not a minute early, and not a minute late.” 

Then he resumed his perusal of the adventures of 
ladies to whom the illustrations accorded magnificent 
calf-development. 

The crew worked on the marsh that afternoon, and 
the subsequent days of the week. They labored con- 
scientiously but not zealously. There is a deal of dif- 
ference, and the lumber-jack’s unaided conscience is 
likely to allow him a certain amount of conversation 
from the decks of skidways. The work moved slowly. 
At Christmas a number of the men “ went out.” Most 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


7 1 

of them were back again after four or five days, for, 
while men were not plenty, neither was work. The 
equilibrium was nearly exact. 

But the convivial souls had lost to Dyer the days 
of their debauch, and until their thirst for recupera- 
tive “ Pain Killer,” “ Hinckley ” and Jamaica Ginger 
was appeased, they were not much good. Instead of 
keeping up to fifty thousand a day, as Radway had 
figured was necessary, the scale would not have ex- 
ceeded thirty. 

Dyer saw all this plainly enough, but was not able 
to remedy it. That was not entirely his fault. He 
did not dare give the delinquents their time, for he 
would not have known where to fill their places. This 
lay in Radway’s experience. Dyer felt that responsi- 
bilities a little too great had been forced on him, which 
was partly true. In a few days the young man’s facile 
conscience had covered all his shortcomings with the 
blanket excuse. He conceived that he had a griev- 
ance against Radway! 


Chapter X 

¥~)ADWAY returned to camp by the 6th of 
January. He went on snowshoes over the en- 
JL V tire job; and then sat silently in the office smok- 
ing “ Peerless ” in his battered old pipe. Dyer 
watched him amusedly, secure in his grievance in case 
blame should be attached to him. The jobber looked 
older. The lines of dry good-humor about his eyes 
had subtly changed to an expression of pathetic 
anxiety. He attached no blame to anybody, but rose 
the next morning at horn-blow, and the men found 
they had a new master over them. 

And now the struggle with the wilderness came to 
grapples. Radway was as one possessed by a burn- 
ing fever. He seemed everywhere at once, always 
helping with his own shoulder and arm, hurrying eag- 
erly. For once luck seemed with him. The marsh 
was cut over; the “eighty” on section eight was 
skidded without a break. The weather held cold and 
clear. 

Now it became necessary to put the roads in shape 
for hauling. All winter the blacksmith, between his 
tasks of shoeing and mending, had occupied his time 
in fitting the iron-work on eight log-sleighs which the 
carpenter had hewed from solid sticks of timber. 
They were tremendous affairs, these sleighs, with run- 
ners six feet apart, and bunks nine feet in width for 
the reception of logs. The bunks were so connected 
by two loosely-coupled rods that, when emptied, they 
could be swung parallel with the road, so reducing 
the width of the sleigh. The carpenter had also built 
72 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


73 


two immense tanks on runners, holding each some 
seventy barrels of water, and with holes so arranged 
in the bottom and rear that on the withdrawal of plugs 
the water would flood the entire width of the road. 
These sprinklers were filled by horse power. A chain 
running through blocks attached to a solid upper 
framework, like the open belfry of an Italian monas- 
tery, dragged a barrel up a wooden track from the 
water hole to the opening in the sprinkler. When in 
action this formidable machine weighed nearly two 
tons and resembled a moving house. Other men had 
felled two big hemlocks, from which they had hewed 
beams for a V plow. 

The V plow was now put in action. Six horses 
drew it down the road, each pair superintended by a 
driver. The machine was weighted down by a num- 
ber of logs laid across the arms. Men guided it by 
levers, and by throwing their weight against the fans 
of the plow. It was a gay, animated scene this, full 
of the spirit of winter — the plodding, straining horses, 
the brilliantly dressed, struggling men, the sullen- 
yielding snow thrown to either side, the shouts, warn- 
ings, and commands. To right and left grew white 
banks of snow. Behind stretched a broad white path 
in which a scant inch hid the bare earth. 

For some distance the way led along comparatively 
high ground. Then, skirting the edge of a lake, it 
plunged into a deep creek bottom between hills. 
Here, earlier in the year, eleven bridges had been con- 
structed, each a labor of accuracy; and perhaps as 
many swampy places had been “ corduroyed ” by car- 
peting them with long parallel poles. Now the first 
difficulty began. 

Some of the bridges had sunk below the level, and 
the approaches had to be corduroyed to a practicable 
grade. Others again were humped up like tom-cats, 
and had to be pulled apart entirely. In spots the 


74 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ corduroy ” had spread, so that the horses thrust 
their hoofs far down into leg-breaking holes. The 
experienced animals were never caught, however. As 
soon as they felt the ground giving way beneath one 
foot, they threw their weight on the other. 

Still, that sort of thing was to be expected. 
A gang of men who followed the plow carried axes 
and cant-hooks for the purpose of repairing extem- 
. poraneously just such defects, which never would have 
been discovered otherwise than by the practical ex- 
perience. Radway himself accompanied the plow. 
Thorpe, who went along as one of the “ road 
monkeys,” saw now why such care had been required 
of him in smoothing the way of stubs, knots, and 
hummocks. 

Down the creek an accident occurred on this ac- 
count. The plow had encountered a drift. Three 
times the horses had plunged at it, and three times 
had been brought to a stand, not so much by the 
drag of the V plow as by the wallowing they them- 
selves had to do in the drift. 

“ No use, break her through, boys,” said Radway. 

So a dozen men hurled their bodies through, mak- 
ing an opening for the horses. 

“Hi! yup!” shouted the three teamsters, gather- 
ing up their reins. 

The horses put their heads down and plunged. The 
whole apparatus moved with a rush, men clinging, 
animals digging their hoofs in, snow flying. Suddenly 
there came a check, then a crack , and then the plow 
shot forward so suddenly and easily that the horses 
all but fell on their noses. The flanging arms of the 
V, forced in a place too narrow, had caught between 
heavy stubs. One of the arms had broken square off. 

There was nothing for it but to fell another hem- 
lock and hew out another beam, which meant a day 
lost. Radway occupied his men with shovels in clear- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


75 


ing the edge of the road, and started one of his sprink- 
lers over the place already cleared. Water holes of 
suitable size had been blown in the creek bank by 
dynamite. There the machines were filled. It was 
a slow process. Stratton attached his horse to the 
chain and drove him back and forth, hauling the bar- 
rel up and down the slideway. At the bottom it was 
capsized and filled by means of a long pole shackled 
to its bottom and manipulated by old man Heath. 
At the top it turned over by its own weight. Thus 
seventy odd times. 

Then Fred Green hitched his team on, and the four 
horses drew the creaking, cumbrous vehicle spouting 
down the road. Water gushed in fans from the open- 
ings on either side and beneath; and in streams from 
two holes behind. Not for an instant as long as the 
flow continued dared the teamsters breathe their 
horses, for a pause would freeze the runners tight to 
the ground. A tongue at either end obviated the 
necessity of turning around. 

While the other men hewed at the required beam 
for the broken V plow, Heath, Stratton, and Green 
went over the cleared road-length once. To do so 
required three sprinklerfuls. When the road should 
be quite free, and both sprinklers running, they would 
have to keep at it until after midnight. 

And then silently the wilderness stretched forth her 
hand and pushed these struggling atoms back to their 
place. 

That night it turned warmer. The change was 
heralded by a shift of wind. Then some blue jays 
appeared from nowhere and began to scream at their 
more silent brothers, the whisky jacks. 

“ She’s goin’ to rain,” said old Jackson. “ The air 
is kind o’ holler.” 

“Hollow?” said Thorpe, laughing. “How is 
that?” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


76 

“ I don’ no,” confessed Hines, “ but she is. She 
jest feels that way.” 

In the morning the icicles dripped from the roof, 
and although the snow did not appreciably melt, it 
shrank into itself and became pock-marked on the 
surface. 

Radway was down looking at the road. 

“ She’s holdin’ her own,” said he, “ but there ain’t 
any use putting more water on her. She ain’t freez- 
ing a mite. We’ll plow her out.” 

So they finished the job, and plowed her out, leav- 
ing exposed the wet, marshy surface of the creek- 
bottom, on which at night a thin crust formed. Across 
the marsh the old tramped road held up the horses, 
and the plow swept clear a little wider swath. 

“ She’ll freeze a little to-night,” said Radway hope- 
fully. “ You sprinkler boys get at her and wet her 
down.” 

Until two o’clock in the morning the four teams 
and the six men creaked back and forth spilling 
hardly-gathered water — weird, unearthly, in the flick- 
ering light of their torches. Then they crept in and 
ate sleepily the food that a sleepy cookee set out for 
them. 

By morning the mere surface of this sprinkled water 
had frozen, the remainder beneath had drained away, 
and so Radway found in his road considerable patches 
of shell ice, useless, crumbling. He looked in despair 
at the sky. Dimly through the gray he caught the 
tint of blue. 

The sun came out. Nut-hatches and wood-peckers 
ran gayly up the warming trunks of the trees. Blue 
jays fluffed and perked and screamed in the hard-wood 
tops. A covey of grouse ventured from the swamp 
and strutted vainly, a pause of contemplation between 
each step. Radway, walking out on the tramped road 
of the marsh, cracked the artificial skin and thrust his 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


77 

ioot through into icy water. That night the sprinklers 
stayed in. 

The devil seemed in it. If the thaw would only 
cease before the ice bottom so laboriously constructed 
was destroyed! Radway vibrated between the office 
and the road. Men were lying idle; teams were doing 
the same. Nothing went on but the days of the year; 
and four of them had already ticked off the calendar. 
The deep snow of the unusually cold autumn had now 
disappeared from the tops of the stumps. Down in 
the swamp the covey of partridges were beginning to 
hope that in a few days more they might discover a 
bare spot in the burnings. It even stopped freezing 
during the night. At times Dyer’s little thermometer 
marked as high as forty degrees. 

“ I often heard this was a sort ’v summer resort,” 
observed Tom Broadhead, “ but danged if I knew it 
was a summer resort all the year ’round.” 

The weather got to be the only topic of conversa- 
tion. Each had his say, his prediction. It became 
maddening. Towards evening the chill of melting 
snow would deceive many into the belief that a cold 
snap was beginning. 

“ She’ll freeze before morning, sure,” was the hope- 
ful comment. 

And then in the morning the air would be more 
balmily insulting than ever. 

“ Old man is as blue as a whetstone,” commented 
Jackson Hines, “ an’ I don’t blame him. This 
weather’d make a man mad enough to eat the devil 
with his horns left on.” 

By and by it got to be a case of looking on the bright 
side of the affair from pure reaction. 

“ I don’t know,” said Radway, “ it won’t be so bad 
after all. A couple of days of zero weather, with all 
this water lying around, would fix things up in pretty 
good shape. If she only freezes tight, we’ll have a 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


78 

good solid bottom to build on, and that’ll be quite a 
good rig out there on the marsh.” 

The inscrutable goddess of the wilderness smiled, 
and calmly, relentlessly, moved her next pawn. 

It was all so unutterably simple, and yet so effective. 
Something there was in it of the calm inevitability of 
fate. It snowed. 

All night and all day the great flakes zig-zagged 
softly down through the air. Radway plowed away 
two feet of it. The surface was promptly covered by 
a second storm. Radway doggedly plowed it out 
again. 

This time the goddess seemed to relent. The 
ground froze solid. The sprinklers became assiduous 
in their labor. Two days later the road was ready for 
the first sleigh, its surface of thick, glassy ice, beautiful 
to behold; the ruts cut deep and true; the grades 
sanded, or sprinkled with retarding hay on the de- 
scents. At the river the banking ground proved 
solid. Radway breathed again, then sighed. Spring 
was eight days nearer. He was eight days more 
behind. 


Chapter XI 

S soon as loading began, the cook served break- 
/J fast at three o’clock. The men worked by the 
^ JL hght of torches, which were often merely catsup 
jugs with wicking in the necks. Nothing could be 
more picturesque than a teamster conducting one of 
his great pyramidical loads over the little inequalities 
of the road, in the ticklish places standing atop with 
the bent knee of the Roman charioteer, spying and 
forestalling the chances of the way with a fixed eye 
and an intense concentration that relaxed not one 
inch in the miles of the haul. Thorpe had become a 
full-fledged cant-hook man. 

He liked the work. There is about it a skill that 
fascinates. A man grips suddenly with the hook of 
his strong instrument, stopping one end that the other 
may slide; he thrusts the short, strong stock between 
the log and the skid, allowing it to be overrun; he 
stops the roll with a sudden sure grasp applied at just 
the right moment to be effective. Sometimes he al- 
lows himself to be carried up bodily, clinging to the 
cant-hook like an acrobat to a bar, until the log has 
rolled once; when, his . weapon loosened, he drops 
lightly, easily to the ground. And it is exciting to 
pile the logs on the sleigh, first a layer of five, say; 
then one of six smaller; of but three; of two; until, 
at the very apex, the last is dragged slowly up the 
skids, poised, and, just as it is about to plunge down 
the other side, is gripped and held inexorably by the 
little men in blue flannel shirts. 

Chains bind the loads. And if ever, during the load- 
ing, or afterwards when the sleigh is in motion, the 
79 


8o 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


weight of the logs causes the pyramid to break down 
and squash out ; — then woe to the driver, or whoever 
happens to be near! A saw log does not make a great 
deal of fuss while falling, but it falls through anything 
that happens in its way, and a man who gets mixed 
up in a load of twenty-five or thirty of them obeying 
the laws of gravitation from a height of some fifteen 
to twenty feet, can be crushed into strange shapes and 
fragments. For this reason the loaders are picked and 
careful men. 

At the banking grounds, which lie in and about the 
bed of the river, the logs are piled in a gigantic skid- 
way to await the spring freshets, which will carry them 
down stream to the “ boom.” In that enclosure they 
remain until sawed in the mill. 

Such is the drama of the saw log, a story of grit, 
resourcefulness, adaptability, fortitude and ingenuity 
hard to match. Conditions never repeat themselves 
in the woods as they do in the factory. The wilder- 
ness offers ever new complications to solve, difficulties 
to overcome. A man must think of everything, figure 
on everything, from the grand sweep of the country 
at large to the pressure on a king-bolt. And where 
another possesses the boundless resources of a great 
city, he has to rely on the material stored in one cor- 
ner of a shed. It is easy to build a palace with men 
and tools; it is difficult to build a log cabin with noth- 
ing but an ax. His wits must help him where his 
experience fails; and his experience must push him 
mechanically along the track of habit when successive 
* buffetings have beaten his wits out of his head. In 
a day he must construct elaborate engines, roads, and 
implements which old civilization considers the works 
of leisure. Without a thought of expense he must 
abandon as temporary, property which other indus- 
tries cry out at being compelled to acquire as per- 
manent. For this reason he becomes in time different 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


81 

from his fellows. The wilderness leaves something 
of her mystery in his eyes, that mystery of hidden, 
unknown but guessed, power. Men look after him 
on the street, as they would look after any other 
pioneer, in vague admiration of a scope more virile 
than their own. 

Thorpe, in common with the other men, had thought 
Radway's vacation at Christmas time a mistake. He 
could not but admire the feverish animation that now 
characterized the jobber. Every mischance was as 
quickly repaired as aroused expedient could do the 
work. 

The marsh received first attention. There the rest- 
less snow drifted uneasily before the wind. Nearly 
every day the road had to be plowed, and the 
sprinklers followed the teams almost constantly. 
Often it was bitter cold, but no one dared to suggest 
to the determined jobber that it might be better to 
remain indoors. The men knew as well as he that 
the heavy February snows would block traffic beyond 
hope of extrication. 

As it was, several times an especially heavy fall 
clogged the way. The snow-plow, even with extra 
teams, could hardly force its path through. Men with 
shovels helped. Often but a few loads a day, and they 
small, could be forced to the banks by the utmost ex- 
ertions of the entire crew. Esprit de corps awoke. 
The men sprang to their tasks with alacrity, gave more 
than an hour's exertion to each of the twenty-four, took 
a pride in repulsing the assaults of the great enemy, 
whom they personified under the generic “ She." 
Mike McGovern raked up a saint somewhere whom 
he apostrophized in a personal and familiar manner. 

He hit his head against an overhanging branch. 

“ You're a nice wan, now ain’t ye? ” he cried angrily 
at the unfortunate guardian of his soul. “ Dom if Oi 
don’t quit ye! Ye see!” 


82 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“Be the gate of Hivin!” he shouted, when he 
opened the door of mornings and discovered another 
six inches of snow, “Ye’re a burrd! If Oi couldn’t 
make out to be more of a saint than that, Oi’d quit 
the biznis ! Move yor pull, an’ get us some dacint 
weather! Ye awt t’ be road monkeyin’ on th’ golden 
streets, thot’s what ye awt to be doin’! ” 

Jackson Hines was righteously indignant, but with 
the shrewdness of the old man, put the blame partly 
where it belonged. 

“ I ain’t sayin’,” he observed judicially, “ that this 
weather ain’t hell. It’s hell and repeat. But a man 
sort’ve got to expec’ weather. He looks for it, and 
he oughta be ready for it. The trouble is we got be- 
hind Christmas. It’s that Dyer. He’s about as mean 
as they make ’em. The only reason he didn’t die long 
ago is becuz th’ Devil’s thought him too mean to pay 
any ’tendon to. If ever he should die an’ go to 
Heaven he’d pry up th’ golden streets an’ use the 
infernal pit for a smelter.” 

With this magnificent bit of invective, Jackson 
seized a lantern and stumped out to see that the team- 
sters fed their horses properly. 

“ Didn’t know you were a miner, Jackson,” called 
Thorpe, laughing. 

“ Young feller,” replied Jackson at the door, “ it’s 
a lot easier to tell what I ain’t been.” 

So floundering, battling, making a little progress 
every day, the strife continued. 

One morning in February, Thorpe was helping load 
a big butt log. He was engaged in “sending up”; 
that is, he was one of the two men who stand at either 
side of the skids to help the ascending log keep straight 
and true to its bed on the pile. His assistant’s end 
caught on a sliver, ground for a second, and slipped 
back. Thus the log ran slanting across the skids in- 
stead of perpendicular to them. To rectify the fault, 
Thorpe dug his cant-hook into the timber and threw 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 83 

nis weight on the stock. He hoped in this manner 
to check correspondingly the ascent of his end. In 
other words, he took the place, on his side, of the pre- 
venting sliver, so equalizing the pressure and forcing 
the timber to its proper position. Instead of rolling, 
the log slid. The stock of the cant-hook was jerked 
from his hands. He fell back, and the cant-hook, after 
clinging for a moment to the rough bark, snapped 
down and hit him a crushing blow on the top of the 
head. 

Had a less experienced man than Jim Gladys been 
stationed at the other end, Thorpe’s life would have 
ended there. A shout of surprise or horror would 
have stopped the horse pulling on the decking chain; 
the heavy stick would have slid back on the prostrate 
young man, who would have thereupon been ground 
to atoms as he lay. With the utmost coolness Gladys 
swarmed the slanting face of the load; interposed the 
length of his cant-hook stock between the log and it; 
held it exactly long enough to straighten the timber, 
but not so long as to crush his own head and arm; and 
ducked, just as the great piece of wood rumbled over 
the end of the skids and dropped with a thud into the 
place Norton, the “ top ” man, had prepared for it. 

It was a fine deed, quickly thought, quickly dared. 
No one saw it. Jim Gladys was a hero, but a hero 
without an audience. 

They took Thorpe up and carried him in, just as 
they had carried Hank Paul before. Men who had not 
spoken a dozen words to him in as many days gathered 
his few belongings and stuffed them awkwardly into 
his satchel. Jackson Hines prepared the bed of straw 
and warm blankets in the bottom of the sleigh that 
was to take him out. 

“ He would have made a good boss,” said the old 
fellow. “ He’s a hard man to nick.” 

Thorpe was carried in from the front, and the battle 
v 7 .ent on without him. 


Chapter XII 

^■^^HORPE never knew how carefully he was car- 
'•X ried to camp, nor how tenderly the tote team- 
ster drove his hay-couched burden to Beeson 
Lake. He had no consciousness of the jolting train, 
in the baggage car of which Jimmy, the little brake- 
man, and Bud, and the baggage man spread blankets, 
and altogether put themselves to a great deal of 
trouble. When finally he came to himself, he was in 
a long, bright, clean room, and the sunset was throw- 
ing splashes of light on the ceiling over his head. 

He watched them idly for a time; then turned on 
his pillow. At once he perceived a long, double row 
of clean white-painted iron beds, on which lay or sat 
figures of men. Other figures, of women, glided here 
and there noiselessly. They wore long, spreading 
dove-gray clothes, with a starched white kerchief 
drawn over the shoulders and across the breast. 
Their heads were quaintly white-garbed in stiff wing- 
like coifs, fitting close about the oval of the face. Then 
Thorpe sighed comfortably, and closed his eyes and 
blessed the chance that he had bought a hospital ticket 
of the agent who had visited camp the month before. 
For these were Sisters, and the young man lay in the 
Hospital of St. Mary. 

Time was when the lumber-jack who had the mis- 
fortune to fall sick or to meet with an accident was 
in a sorry plight indeed. If he possessed a “ stake,” 
he would receive some sort of unskilled attention in 
one of the numerous and fearful lumberman’s board- 
ing-houses, — just so long as his money lasted, not one 
84 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 85 

instant more. Then he was bundled brutally into the 
street, no matter what his condition might be. Penni- 
less, without friends, sick, he drifted naturally to the 
county poorhouse. There he was patched up quickly 
and sent out half-cured. The authorities were not so 
much to blame. With the slender appropriations at 
their disposal, they found difficulty in taking care of 
those who came legitimately under their jurisdiction. 
It was hardly to be expected that they would welcome 
with open arms a vast army of crippled and diseased 
men temporarily from the woods. The poor lumber- 
jack was often left broken in mind and body from 
causes which a little intelligent care would have ren- 
dered unimportant. 

With the establishment of the first St. Mary’s hos- 
pital, I think at Bay City, all this was changed. Now, 
in it and a half dozen others conducted on the same 
principles, the woodsman receives the best of medi- 
cines, nursing, and medical attendance. From one of 
the numerous agents who periodically visit the camps, 
he purchases for eight dollars a ticket which admits 
him at any time during the year to the hospital, where 
he is privileged to remain free of further charge until 
convalescent. So valuable are these institutions, and 
so excellently are they maintained by the Sisters, that 
a hospital agent is always welcome, even in those 
camps from which ordinary peddlers and insurance 
men are rigidly excluded. Like a great many other 
charities built on a common-sense self-supporting ra- 
tional basis, the woods hospitals are under the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

In one of these hospitals Thorpe lay for six weeks 
suffering from a severe concussion of the brain. At 
the end of the fourth, his fever had broken, but he 
was pronounced as yet too weak to be moved. 

His nurse was a red-cheeked, blue-eyed, homely lit- 
tle Irish girl, brimming with motherly good-humor. 


86 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


When Thorpe found strength to talk, the two became 
friends. Through her influence he was moved to a 
bed about ten feet from the window. Thence his 
privileges were three roofs and a glimpse of the dis- 
tant river. 

The roofs were covered with snow. One day 
Thorpe saw it sink into itself and gradually run away. 
The tinkle tinkle tank tank of drops sounded from his 
own eaves. Down the far-off river, sluggish reaches 
of ice drifted. Then in a night the blue disappeared 
from the stream. It became a menacing gray, and 
even from his distance Thorpe could catch the swirl 
of its rising waters. A day or two later dark masses 
drifted or shot across the field of his vision, and twice 
he thought he distinguished men standing upright and 
bold on single logs as they rushed down the current. 

“ What is the date? ” he asked of the Sister. 

“ The elevent’ of March.” 

“ Isn’t it early for the thaw? ” 

“Listen to ’im!” exclaimed the Sister delightedly. 
“Early is it! Sure th’ freshet co’t thim all. Look, 
darlint, ye kin see th’ drive from here.” 

“ I see,” said Thorpe wearily, “ when can I get 
out? ” 

“ Not for wan week,” replied the Sister decidedly. 

At the end of the week Thorpe said good-by to his 
attendant, who appeared as sorry to see him go as 
though the same partings did not come to her a dozen 
times a year; he took two days of tramping the little 
town to regain the use of his legs, and boarded the 
morning train for Beeson Lake. He did not pause in 
the village, but bent his steps to the river trail. 


Chapter XIII 

r HORPE found the woods very different from 
when he had first traversed them. They were 
full of patches of wet earth and of sunshine; 
of dark pine, looking suddenly worn, and of fresh 
green shoots of needles, looking deliciously spring- 
like. This was the contrast everywhere — stern, ear- 
nest, purposeful winter, and gay, laughing, careless 
spring. It was impossible not to draw in fresh spirits 
with every step. 

He followed the trail by the river. Butterballs and 
scoters paddled up at his approach. Bits of rotten ice 
occasionally swirled down the diminishing stream. 
The sunshine was clear and bright, but silvery rather 
than golden, as though a little of the winter’s snow, — 
a last ethereal incarnation, — had lingered in its sub- 
stance. Around every bend Thorpe looked for some 
of Radway’s crew “ driving ” the logs down the cur- 
rent. He knew from chance encounters with several 
of the men in Bay City that Radway was still in camp; 
which meant, of course, that the last of the season’s 
operations were not yet finished. Five miles further 
Thorpe began to wonder whether this last conclusion 
might not be erroneous. The Cass Branch had 
shrunken almost to its original limits. Only here and 
there a little bayou or marsh attested recent freshets. 
The drive must have been finished, even this early, 
for the stream in its present condition would hardly 
float saw logs, certainly not in quantity. 

Thorpe, puzzled, walked on. At the banking 
ground he found empty skids. Evidently the drive 
87 


88 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


was over. And yet even to Thorpe’s ignorance, it 
seemed incredible that the remaining million and a 
half of logs had been hauled, banked and driven dur- 
ing the short time he had lain in the Bay City hos- 
pital. More to solve the problem than in any hope 
of work, he set out up the logging road. 

Another three miles brought him to camp. It 
looked strangely wet and sodden and deserted. In 
fact, Thorpe found a bare half dozen people in it, — 
Radway, the cook, and four men who were helping to 
pack up the movables, and who later would drive out 
the wagons containing them. The jobber showed 
strong traces of the strain he had undergone, but 
greeted Thorpe almost jovially. He seemed able to 
show more of his real nature now that the necessity 
of authority had been definitely removed. 

“ Hullo, young man,” he shouted at Thorpe’s mud- 
splashed figure, “ come back to view the remains ? All 
well again, heigh? That’s good! ” 

He strode down to grip the young fellow heartily by 
the hand. It was impossible not to be charmed by the 
sincere cordiality of his manner. 

“ I didn’t know you were through,” explained 
Thorpe, “ I came to see if I could get a job.” 

“ Well now I am sorry! ” cried Radway, “ you can 
turn in and help though, if you want to.” 

Thorpe greeted the cook and old Jackson Hines, 
the only two whom he knew, and set to work to tie 
up bundles of blankets, and to collect axes, peavies, 
and tools of all descriptions. This was evidently the 
last wagon-trip, for little remained to be done. 

“ I ought by rights to take the lumber of the roofs 
and floors,” observed Radway thoughtfully, “ but I 
guess she don’t matter.” 

Thorpe had never seen him in better spirits. He 
ascribed the older man’s hilarity to relief over the com- 
pletion of a difficult task. That evening the seven 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 89 

dined together at one end of the long table. The big 
room exhaled already the atmosphere of desertion. 

“ Not much like old times, is she?” laughed Rad- 
way. “ Can’t you just shut your eyes and hear Bap- 
tiste say, ‘ Mak’ heem de soup one tarn more for me ’ ? 
She’s pretty empty now.” 

Jackson Hines looked whimsically down the bare 
board. “ More room than God made for geese in Ire' 
land,” was his comment. 

After supper they even sat outside for a little time 
to smoke their pipes, chair-tilted against the logs of 
the cabins, but soon the chill of melting snow drove 
them indoors. The four teamsters played seven-up in 
the cook camp by the light of a barn lantern, while 
Thorpe and the cook wrote letters. Thorpe’s was to 
his sister. 

“ I have been in the hospital for about a month,” he 
wrote. “ Nothing serious — a crack on the head, 
which is all right now. But I cannot get home this 
summer, nor, I am afraid, can we arrange about the 
school this year. I am about seventy dollars ahead 
of where I was last fall, so you see it is slow business. 
This summer I am going into a mill, but the wages 
for green labor are not very high there either,” and 
so on. 

When Miss Helen Thorpe, aged seventeen, received 
this document she stamped her foot almost angrily. 
“ You’d think he was a day-laborer! ” she cried. 
“ Why doesn’t he try for a clerkship or something in 
the city where he’d have a chance to use his brains! ” 

The thought of her big, strong, tanned brother 
chained to a desk rose to her, and she smiled a little 
sadly. 

“ I know,” she went on to herself, “ he’d rather be 
a common laborer in the woods than railroad manager 
in the office. He loves his out-of-doors.” 

“Helen!” called a voice from below, “if you’re 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


90 

through up there, I wish you’d come down and help 
me carry this rug out.” 

The girl’s eyes cleared with a snap. 

“ So do I ! ” she cried defiantly, “ so do I love out- 
of-doors! I like the woods and the fields and the 
trees just as much as he does, only differently; but I 
don’t get out! ” 

And thus she came to feeling rebelliously that her 
brother had been a little selfish in his choice of an 
occupation, that he sacrificed her inclinations to his 
own. She did not guess, — how could she? — his 
dreams for her. She did not see the future through 
his thoughts, but through his words. A negative 
hopelessness settled down on her, which soon her 
strong spirit, worthy counterpart of her brother’s, 
changed to more positive rebellion. Thorpe had 
aroused antagonism where he craved only love. The 
knowledge of that fact would have surprised and hurt 
him, for he was entirely without suspicion of it. He 
lived subjectively to so great a degree that his thoughts 
and aims took on a certain tangible objectivity, — they 
became so real to him that he quite overlooked the 
necessity of communication to make them as real to 
others. He assumed unquestioningly that the other 
must know. So entirely had he thrown himself into 
his ambition of making a suitable position for Helen, 
so continually had he dwelt on it in his thoughts, so 
earnestly had he striven for it in every step of the 
great game he was beginning to play, that it never 
occurred to him he should also concede a definite out- 
ward manifestation of his feeling in order to assure 
its acceptance. Thorpe believed that he had sacrificed 
every thought and effort to his sister. Helen was be- 
coming convinced that he had considered only himself. 

After finishing the letter which gave occasion to this 
train of thought, Thorpe lit his pipe and strolled out 
into the darkness. Opposite the little office he stopped 
amazed. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


9 * 

Through the narrow window he could see Radway 
seated in front of the stove. Every attitude of the man 
denoted the most profound dejection. He had sunk 
down into his chair until he rested on almost the small 
of his back, his legs were struck straight out in front 
of him, his chin rested on his breast, and his two arms 
hung listless at his side, a pipe half falling from the 
fingers of one hand. All the facetious lines had 
turned to pathos. In his face sorrowed the anxious, 
questing, wistful look of the St. Bernard that does not 
understand. 

“ What’s the matter with the boss, anyway? ” asked 
Thorpe in a low voice of Jackson Hines, when the 
^even-up game was finished. 

“ H’aint ye heard?” inquired the old man in sur- 
prise. 

“Why, no. What?” 

“ Busted,” said the old man sententiously. 

“ How? What do you mean?” 

“ What I say. He’s busted. That freshet caught 
him too quick. They’s more’n a million and a half 
logs left in the woods that can’t be got out this year, 
and as his contract calls for a finished job, he don’t get 
nothin’ for what he’s done.” 

“ That’s a queer rig,” commented Thorpe. “ He’s 
done a lot of valuable work here, — the timber’s cut 
and skidded, anyway; and he’s delivered a good deal 
of it to the main drive. The M. & D. outfit get all the 
advantage of that.” 

“ They do, my son. When old Daly’s hand gets 
near anything, it cramps. I don’t know how the old 
man come to make such a contrac’, but he did. Re- 
sult is, he’s out his expenses and time.” 

To understand exactly the catastrophe that had oc- 
curred, it is necessary to follow briefly an outline of 
the process after the logs have been piled on the banks. 
There they remain until the break-up attendant on 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


9 2 

spring shall flood the stream to a freshet. The roll- 
ways are then broken, and the saw logs floated down 
the river to the mill where they are to be cut into 
lumber. 

If for any reason this transportation by water is de- 
layed until the flood goes down, the logs are stranded 
or left in pools. Consequently every logger puts into 
the two or three weeks of freshet water a feverish ac- 
tivity which shall carry his product through before the 
ebb. 

The exceptionally early break-up of this spring, 
combined with the fact that, owing to the series of 
incidents and accidents already sketched, the actual 
cutting and skidding had fallen so far behind, caught 
Radway unawares. He saw his rollways breaking out 
while his teams were still hauling in the woods. In 
order to deliver to the mouth of the Cass Branch the 
three million already banked, he was forced to drop 
everything else and attend strictly to the drive. This 
left still, as has been stated, a million and a half on 
skidways, which Radway knew he would be unable to 
get out that year. 

In spite of the jobber’s certainty that his claim was 
thus annulled, and that he might as well abandon the 
enterprise entirely for all he would ever get out of it, 
he finished the “ drive ” conscientiously and saved to 
the Company the logs already banked. Then he had 
interviewed Daly. The latter refused to pay him one 
cent. Nothing remained but to break camp and grin 
as best he might over the loss of his winter’s work 
and expenses. 

The next day Radway and Thorpe walked the ten 
miles of the river trail together, while the teamsters 
and the cook drove down the five teams. Under the 
influence of the solitude and a certain sympathy which 
Thorpe manifested, Radway talked — a very little. 

“ I got behind; that’s all there is to it,” he said. “ I 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


93 

s’pose I ought to have driven the men a little; but still, 
I don’t know. It gets pretty cold on the plains. I 
guess I bit off more than I could chew.” 

His eye followed listlessly a frenzied squirrel swing- 
ing from the tops of poplars. 

“ I wouldn’t ’a done it for myself,” he went on. “ I 
don’t like the confounded responsibility. They’s too 
much worry connected with it all. I had a good snug 
little stake — mighty nigh six thousand. She’s all 
gone now. That’d have been enough for me — I ain’t 
a drinkin’ man. But then there was the woman and 
the kid. This ain’t no country for woman-folks, and I 
wanted t’ take little Lida out o’ here. I had lots of 
experience in the woods, and I’ve seen men make big 
money time and again, who didn’t know as much about 
it as I do. But they got there, somehow. Says I, I’ll 
make a stake this year — I’d a had twelve thousand in 
th’ bank, if things’d have gone right — and then we’ll 
jest move down around Detroit an’ I’ll put Lida in 
school.” 

Thorpe noticed a break in the man’s voice, and 
glancing suddenly toward him was astounded to catch 
his eyes brimming with tears. Radway perceived the 
surprise. 

“ You know when I left Christmas? ” he asked. 

“ Yes.” 

“ I was gone two weeks, and them two weeks done 
me. We was going slow enough before, God knows, 
but even with the rank weather and all, I think we’d 
have won out, if we could have held the same gait.” 

Radway paused. Thorpe was silent. 

“ The boys thought it was a mighty poor rig, my 
leaving that way.” 

He paused again in evident expectation of a reply. 
Again Thorpe was silent. 

“ Didn’t they?” Radway insisted. 

“ Yes, they did,” answered Thorpe. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


94 

The older man sighed. “ I thought so,” he went on. 
“ Well, I didn’t go to spend Christmas. I went be- 
cause Jimmy brought me a telegram that Lida was sick 
with diphtheria. I sat up nights with her for ’leven 
days.” 

“ No bad after-effects, I hope? ” inquired Thorpe. 

“ She died,” said Radway simply. 

The two men tramped stolidly on. This was too 
great an affair for Thorpe to approach except on the 
knees of his spirit. After a long interval, during 
which the waters had time to still, the young man 
changed the subject. 

“ Aren’t you going to get anything out of M. & 
D.?” he asked. 

“ No. Didn’t earn nothing. I left a lot of their saw 
logs hung up in the woods, where they’ll deteriorate 
from rot and worms. This is their last season in this 
district.” 

“ Got anything left? ” 

“ Not a cent.” 

“ What are you going to do? ” 

“Do!” cried the old woodsman, the fire springing 
to his eye. “ Do! I’m going into the woods, by God! 
I’m going to work with my hands, and be happy! I’m 
going to do other men’s work for them and take other 
men’s pay. Let them do the figuring and worrying. 
I’ll boss their gangs and make their roads and see to 
their logging for ’em, but it’s got to be theirs. Do! 
I’m going to be a free man by the G. jumping 
Moses!” 


Chapter XIV 

r HORPE dedicated a musing instant to the in- 
congruity of rejoicing over a freedom gained 
by ceasing to be master and becoming servant. 
“ Radway,” said he suddenly, “ I need money and 
I need it bad. I think you ought to get something 
out of this job of the M. & D. — not much, but some- 
thing. Will you give me a share of what I can collect 
from them ? ” 

“ Sure ! ” agreed the jobber readily, with a laugh. 
“ Sure ! But you won’t get anything. I’ll give you 
ten per cent quick.” 

“ Good enough! ” cried Thorpe. 

“ But don’t be too sure you’ll earn day wages doing 
it,” warned the other. “ I saw Daly when I was down 
here last week.” 

“ My time’s not valuable,” replied Thorpe. “ Now 
when we get to town I want your power of attorney 
and a few figures, after which I will not bother you 
again.” 

The next day the young man called for the second 
time at the little red-painted office under the shadow 
of the mill, and for the second time stood before the 
bulky power of the junior member of the firm. 

“ Well, young man, what can I do for you? ” asked 
the latter. 

“ I have been informed,” said Thorpe without pre- 
liminary, “ that you intend to pay John Radway noth- 
ing for the work done on the Cass Branch this winter. 
Is that true? ” 

Daly studied his antagonist meditatively. “ If it is 
true, what is it to you? ” he asked at length. 

95 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


96 

“ I am acting in Mr. Radway’s interest.” 

“ You are one of Radway’s men? ” 

“ Yes • ,, 

“ In what capacity have you been working for him? ” 

“ Cant-hook man,” replied Thorpe briefly. 

“ I see,” said Daly slowly. Then suddenly, with an 
intensity of energy that startled Thorpe, he cried: 
“ Now you get out of here! Right off! Quick! ” 

The younger man recognized the compelling and 
autocratic boss addressing a member of the crew. 

“ I shall do nothing of the kind! ” he replied with a 
flash of fire. 

The mill-owner leaped to his feet every inch a leader 
of men. Thorpe did not wish to bring about an actual 
scene of violence. He had attained his object, which 
was to fluster the other out of his judicial calm. 

“ I have Radway’s power of attorney,” he added. 

Daly sat down, controlled himself with an effort, and 
growled out, “ Why didn’t you say so? ” 

“ Now I would like to know your position,” went on 
Thorpe. “ I am not here to make trouble, but as an 
associate of Mr. Radway, I have a right to understand 

the case. Of course I have his side of the story 

he suggested, as though convinced that a detailing of 
the other side might change his views. 

Daly considered carefully, fixing his flint-blue eyes 
unswervingly on Thorpe’s face. Evidently his scrutiny 
advised him that the young man was a force to be 
reckoned with. 

“ It’s like this,” said he abruptly, “ we contracted 
last fall with this man Radway to put in five million 
feet of our timber, delivered to the main drive at the 
mouth of the Cass Branch. In this he was to act in- 
dependently except as to the matter of provisions. 
Those he drew from our van, and was debited with the 
amount of the same. Is that clear? ” 

“ Perfectly,” replied Thorpe. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


97 

“ In return we were to pay him, merchantable scale, 
four dollars a thousand. If, however, he failed to put 
in the whole job, the contract was void.” 

“ That’s how I understand it,” commented Thorpe. 
“Well?” 

“ Well, he didn’t get in the five million. There’s a 
million and a half hung up in the woods.” 

“ But you have in your hands three million and a 
half, which under the present arrangement you get free 
of any charge whatever.” 

“ And we ought to get it,” cried Daly. “ Great 
guns! Here we intend to saw this summer and quit. 
We want to get in every stick of timber we own so 
as to be able to clear out of here for good and all at 
the close of the season ; and now this condigned jobber 
ties us up for a million and a half.” 

“ It is exceedingly annoying,” conceded Thorpe, 
“ and it is a good deal of Radway’s fault, I am willing 
to admit, but it’s your fault too.” 

“ To be sure,” replied Daly with the accent of sar- 
casm. 

“ You had no business entering into any such con- 
tract. It gave him no show.” 

“ I suppose that was mainly his lookout, wasn’t it? 
and as I already told you, we had to protect ourselves.” 

“ You should have demanded security for the com- 
pletion of the work. Under your present agreement, 
if Radway got in the timber, you were to pay him a 
fair price. If he didn’t, you appropriated everything 
he had already done. In other words, you made him 
a bet.” 

“ I don’t care what you call it,” answered Daly, who 
had recovered his good-humor in contemplation of 
the security of his position. “ The fact stands all 
right.” 

“ It does,” replied Thorpe unexpectedly, “ and I’m 
glad of it. Now let’s examine a few figures. You 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


98 

owned five million feet of timber, which at the price 
of stumpage ” (standing trees) “ was worth ten thou- 
sand dollars. ,, 

“ Well. ,, 

“ You come out at the end of the season with three 
million and a half of saw logs, which with the four 
dollars’ worth of logging added, are worth twenty-one 
thousand dollars.” 

“Hold on!” cried Daly, “we paid Radway four 
dollars; we could have done it ourselves for less.” 

“ You could not have done it for one cent less than 
four-twenty in that country,” replied Thorpe, “ as any 
expert will testify.” 

“ Why did we give it to Radway at four, then? ” 

“ You saved the expense of a salaried overseer, and 
yourselves some bother,” replied Thorpe. “ Radway 
could do it for less, because, for some strange reason 
which you yourself do not understand, a jobber can 
always log for less than a company.” 

“ We could have done it for four,” insisted Daly 
stubbornly, “ but get on. What are you driving at? 
My time’s valuable.” 

“ Well, put her at four, then,” agreed Thorpe. 
“ That makes your saw logs worth over twenty thou- 
sand dollars. Of this value Radway added thirteen 
thousand. You have appropriated that much of his 
without paying him one cent.” 

Daly seemed amused. “ How about the million and 
a half feet of ours he appropriated?” he asked quietly. 

“ I’m coming to that. Now for your losses. At the 
stumpage rate your million and a half which Radway 
4 appropriated ’ would be only three thousand. But 
for the sake of argument, we’ll take the actual sum 
you’d have received for saw logs. Even then the mil- 
lion and a half would only have been worth between 
eight and nine thousand. Deducting this purely theo- 
retical loss, Radway has occasioned you, from the 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


99 

amount he has gained for you, you are still some four 
or five thousand ahead of the game. For that you 
paid him nothing.” 

“ That’s Radway’s lookout.” 

“ In justice you should pay him that amount. He 
is a poor man. He has sunk all he owned in this vent- 
ure, some twelve thousand dollars, and he has noth- 
ing to live on. Even if you pay him five thousand, 
he has lost considerable, while you have gained.” 

“ How have we gained by this bit of philanthropy? ” 

“ Because you originally paid in cash for all that 
timber on the stump just ten thousand dollars and you 
get from Radway saw logs to the value of twenty,” 
replied Thorpe sharply. “ Besides you still own the 
million and a half which, if you do not care to put them 
in yourself, you can sell for something on the skids.” 

“ Don’t you know, young man, that white pine logs 
on skids will spoil utterly in a summer? Worms get 
into ’em.” 

“I do,” replied Thorpe, “unless you bark them; 
which process will cost you about one dollar a thou- 
sand. You can find any amount of small purchasers 
at reduced price. You can sell them easily at three 
dollars. That nets you for your million and a half a 
little over four thousand dollars more. Under the cir- 
cumstances, I do not think that my request for five 
thousand is at all exorbitant.” 

Daly laughed. “ You are a shrewd figurer, and 
your remarks are interesting,” said he. 

“Will you give five thousand dollars?” asked 
Thorpe. 

“ I will not,” replied Daly, then with a sudden 
change of humor, “ and now I’ll do a little talking. 
I’ve listened to you just as long as I’m going to. I 
have Radway’s contract in that safe and I live up to 
it. I’ll thank you to go plumb to hell! ” 

“ That’s your last word, is it? ” asked Thorpe, rising. 


100 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ It is.” 

“ Then,” said he slowly and distinctly, “ I’ll tell you 
what I'll do. I intend to collect in full the four dollars 
a thousand for the three million and a half Mr. Rad- 
way has delivered to you. In return Mr. Radway will 
purchase of you at the stumpage rates of two dollars 
a thousand the million and a half he failed to put in. 
That makes a bill against you, if my figuring is cor- 
rect, of just eleven thousand dollars. You will pay 
that bill, and I will tell you why: your contract will 
be classed in any court as a gambling contract for lack 
of consideration. You have no legal standing in the 
world. I call your bluff, Mr. Daly, and Til fight you 
from the drop of the hat through every court in 
Christendom.” 

“ Fight ahead,” advised Daly sweetly, who knew 
perfectly well that Thorpe’s law was faulty. As a mat- 
ter of fact the young man could have collected on other 
grounds, but neither was aware of that. 

“ Furthermore,” pursued Thorpe in addition, “ I’ll 
repeat my offer before witnesses; and if I win the first 
suit, I’ll sue you for the money we could have made 
by purchasing the extra million and a half before it 
had a chance to spoil.” 

This statement had its effect, for it forced an im- 
mediate settlement before the pine on the skids should 
deteriorate. Daly lounged back with a little more 
deadly carelessness. 

“ And, lastly,” concluded Thorpe, playing his trump 
card, “ the suit from start to finish will be published 
in every important paper in this country. If you do 
not believe I have the influence to do this, you are at 
liberty to doubt the fact.” 

Daly was cogitating many things. He knew that 
publicity was the last thing to be desired. Thorpe’s 
statement had been made in view of the fact that much 
of the business of a lumber firm is done on credit. He 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


101 


thought that perhaps a rumor of a big suit going 
against the firm might weaken confidence. As a mat- 
ter of fact, this consideration had no weight whatever 
with the older man, although the threat of publicity 
actually gained for Thorpe what he demanded. The 
lumberman feared the noise of an investigation solely 
and simply because his firm, like so many others, was 
engaged at the time in stealing government timber in 
the upper peninsula. He did not call it stealing; but 
that was what it amounted to. Thorpe’s shot in the 
air hit full. 

“ I think we can arrange a basis of settlement,” he 
said finally. “ Be here to-morrow morning at ten with 
Radway.” 

“ Very well,” said Thorpe. 

“ By the way,” remarked Daly, “ I don’t believe I 
know your name?” 

“ Thorpe,” was the reply. 

“ Well, Mr. Thorpe,” said the lumberman with cold 
anger, “ if at any time there is anything within my 
power or influence that you want — I’ll see that you 
don’t get it.” 


Chapter XV 

r HE whole affair was finally compromised for 
nine thousand dollars. Radway, grateful be- 
yond expression, insisted on Thorpe’s accept- 
ance of an even thousand of it. With this money in 
hand, the latter felt justified in taking a vacation for 
the purpose of visiting his sister, so in two days after 
the signing of the check he walked up the straight 
garden path that led to Renwick’s home. 

It was a little painted frame house, back from the 
street, fronted by a precise bit of lawn, with a willow 
bush at one corner. A white picket fence effectually 
separated it from a broad, shaded, not unpleasing 
street. An osage hedge and a board fence respectively 
bounded the side and back. 

Under the low porch Thorpe rang the bell at a door 
flanked by two long, narrow strips of imitation stained 
glass. He entered then a little dark hall from which 
the stairs rose almost directly at the door, containing 
with difficulty a hat-rack and a table on which rested 
a card tray with cards. In the course of greeting an 
elderly woman, he stepped into the parlor. This was 
a small square apartment carpeted in dark Brussels, 
and stuffily glorified in the bourgeois manner by a 
white marble mantel-piece, several pieces of mahogany 
furniture upholstered in haircloth, a table on which 
reposed a number of gift books in celluloid and other 
fancy bindings, an old-fashioned piano with a doily 
and a bit of china statuary, a cabinet or so containing 
such things as ore specimens, dried seaweed and coins, 
and a spindle-legged table or two upholding glass cases 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


103 

garnished with stuffed birds and wax flowers. The 
ceiling was so low that the heavy window hangings 
depended almost from the angle of it and the walls. 

Thorpe, by some strange freak of psychology, sud- 
denly recalled a wild, windy day in the forest. He had 
stood on the top of a height. He saw again the sharp 
puffs of snow, exactly like the smoke from bursting 
shells, where a fierce swoop of the storm struck the 
laden tops of pines ; the dense swirl, again exactly like 
smoke but now of a great fire, that marked the lakes. 
The picture super-imposed itself silently over this 
stuffy bourgeois respectability, like the shadow of a 
dream. He heard plainly enough the commonplace 
drawl of the woman before him offering him the plati- 
tudes of her kind. 

“ You are lookin' real well, Mr. Thorpe," she was 
saying, “ an' I just know Helen will be glad to see you. 
She had a hull afternoon out to-day and won’t be back 
to tea. Dew set and tell me about what you’ve been 
a-doin’ and how you’re a-gettin’ along.’’ 

“ No, thank you, Mrs. Renwick,’’ he replied, “ I’ll 
come back later. How is Helen? ’’ 

“She’s purty well; and sech a nice girl. I think 
she’s getting right handsome.” 

“ Can you tell me where she went? ’’ 

But Mrs. Renwick did not know. So Thorpe wan- 
dered about the maple-shaded streets of the little town. 

For the purposes he had in view five hundred dol- 
lars would be none too much. The remaining five 
hundred he had resolved to invest in his sister’s com- 
fort and happiness. He had thought the matter over 
and come to his decision in that secretive, careful 
fashion so typical of him, working over every logical 
step of his induction so thoroughly that it ended by 
becoming part of his mental fiber. So when he 
reached the conclusion it had already become to him 
an axiom. In presenting it as such to his sister, he 


>04 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


never realized that she had not followed with him the' 
logical steps, and so could hardly be expected to ac- 
cept the conclusion out-of-hand. 

Thorpe wished to give his sister the best education 
possible in the circumstances. She was now nearly 
eighteen years old. He knew likewise that he would 
probably experience a great deal of difficulty in finding 
another family which would afford the young girl 
quite the same equality coupled with so few disadvan- 
tages. Admitted that its level of intellect and taste 
was not high, Mrs. Renwick was on the whole a good 
influence. Helen had not in the least the position of 
servant, but of a daughter. She helped around the 
house ; and in return she was fed, lodged and clothed 
for nothing. 

So though the money might have enabled Helen to 
live independently in a modest way for a year or so, 
Thorpe preferred that she remain where she was. His 
game was too much a game of chance. He might find 
himself at the end of the year without further means. 
Above all things he wished to assure Helen’s material 
safety until such time as he should be quite certain of 
himself. 

In pursuance of this idea he had gradually evolved 
what seemed to him an excellent plan. He had al- 
ready perfected it by correspondence with Mrs. Ren- 
wick. It was, briefly, this: he, Thorpe, would at once 
hire a servant girl, who would make anything but 
supervision unnecessary in so small a household. The 
remainder of the money he had already paid for a 
year’s tuition in the Seminary of the town. Thus 
Helen gained her leisure and an opportunity for study; 
and still retained her home in case of reverse. 

Thorpe found his sister already a young lady. After 
the first delight of meeting had passed, they sat side 
by side on the haircloth sofa and took stock of each 
other. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


toj 

Helen had developed from the school child to the 
woman. She was a handsome girl, possessed of a 
slender, well-rounded form, deep hazel eyes with the 
level gaze of her brother, a clean-cut patrician face, 
and a thorough-bred neatness of carriage that adver- 
tised her good blood. Altogether a figure rather 
aloof, a face rather impassive; but with the possibility 
of passion and emotion, and a will to back them. 

“ Oh, but you’re tanned and — and big! ” she cried, 
kissing her brother. “ You’ve had such a strange 
winter, haven’t you? ” 

“ Yes,” he replied absently. 

Another man would have struck her young imag- 
ination with the wild, free thrill of the wilderness. 
Thus he would have gained her sympathy and under- 
standing. Thorpe was too much in earnest. 

“ Things came a little better than I thought they 
were going to, toward the last,” said he, “ and I made 
a little money.” 

“Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried. “Was it much?” 

“ No, not much,” he answered. The actual figures 
would have been so much better! “ I’ve made ar- 
rangements with Mrs. Renwick to hire a servant girl, 
so you will have all your time free; and I have paid a 
year’s tuition for you in the Seminary.” 

“ Oh!” said the girl, and fell silent. 

After a time, “ Thank you very much, Harry dear,” 
Then after another interval, “ I think I’ll go get ready 
for supper.” 

Instead of getting ready for supper, she paced ex- 
citedly up and down her room. 

“ Oh, why didn't he say what he was about ? ” she 
cried to herself. “ Why didn’t he ! Why didn’t he ! ” 

Next morning she opened the subject again. 

“ Harry, dear,” said she, “ I have a little scheme, 
and I want to see if it is not feasible. How much will 
the girl and the Seminary cost?” 


a of) 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ About four hundred dollars.” 

“ Well now, see, dear. With four hundred dollars 
I can live for a year very nicely by boarding with 
some girls I know who live in a sort of a club ; 
and I could learn much more by going to the High 
School and continuing with some other classes I 
am interested in now. Why see, Harry !” she cried, 
all interest. “ We have Professor Carghill come twice 
a week to teach us English, and Professor Johns, who 
teaches us history, and we hope to get one or two 
more this winter. If I go to the Seminary, I’ll have 
to miss all that. And Harry, really I don’t want to 
go to the Seminary. I don’t think I should like it. 
I know I shouldn’t.” 

“But why not live here, Helen?” he asked. 

“ Because I’m tired of it! ” she cried; “ sick to the 
soul of the stuffiness, and the glass cases, and the — 
the goodness of it ! ” 

Thorpe remembered his vision of the wild, wind- 
tossed pines, and sighed. He wanted very, very much 
to act in accordance with his sister’s desires, although 
he winced under the sharp hurt pang of the sensitive 
man whose intended kindness is not appreciated. The 
impossibility of complying, however, reacted to shut 
his real ideas and emotions the more inscrutably 
within him. 

“ I’m afraid you would not find the girls’ boarding- 
club scheme a good one, Helen,” said he. “ You’d 
find it would work better in theory than in practice.” 

“ But it has worked with the other girls! ” she cried. 

“ I think you would be better off here.” 

Helen bravely choked back her disappointment. 

“ I might live here, but let the Seminary drop, any- 
way. That would save a good deal,” she begged. 
“ I’d get quite as much good out of my work outside, 
and then we’d have all that money besides.” 

“I don’t know; I’ll see,” replied Thorpe. “The 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


107 

mental discipline of class-room work might be a good 
thing.” 

He had already thought of this modification him- 
self, but with his characteristic caution, threw cold 
water on the scheme until he could ascertain definitely 
whether or not it was practicable. He had already 
paid the tuition for the year, and was in doubt as to 
its repayment. As a matter of fact, the negotiation 
took about two weeks. 

During that time Helen Thorpe went through her 
disappointment and emerged on the other side. Her 
nature was at once strong and adaptable. One by one 
she grappled with the different aspects of the case, 
and turned them the other way. By a tour de force 
she actually persuaded herself that her own plan was 
not really attractive to her. But what heart-breaks 
and tears this cost her, only those who in their youth 
have encountered such absolute negations of cherished 
ideas can guess. 

Then Thorpe told her. 

“ I’ve fixed it, Helen,” said he. “ You can attend 
the High School and the classes, if you please. I have 
put the two hundred and fifty dollars out at interest 
for you.” 

“ Oh, Harry ! ” she cried reproachfully. “ Why didn’t 
you tell me before! ” 

He did not understand; but the pleasure of it had 
all faded. She no longer felt enthusiasm, nor grati- 
tude, nor anything except a dull feeling that she had 
been unnecessarily discouraged. And on his side, 
Thorpe was vaguely wounded. 

The days, however, passed in the main pleasurably 
for them both. They were fond of one another. The 
barrier slowly rising between them was not yet 
cemented by lack of affection on either side, but 
rather by lack of belief in the other’s affection. Helen 
imagined Thorpe’s interest in her becoming daily more 


io8 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

perfunctory. Thorpe fancied his sister cold, unreason- 
ing, and ungrateful. As yet this was but the vague 
dust of a cloud. They could not forget that, but for 
each other, they were alone in the world. Thorpe 
delayed his departure from day to day, making all 
the preparations he possibly could at home. 

Finally Helen came on him busily unpacking a 
box which a dray had left at the door. Fie unwound 
and laid one side a Winchester rifle, a variety of fishing 
tackle, and some other miscellanies of the woodsman. 
Helen was struck by the beauty of the sporting imple- 
ments. 

“ Oh, Harry! ” she cried, “ aren’t they fine! What 
are you going to do with them ? ” 

“ Going camping,” replied Thorpe, his head in the 
excelsior. 

“ When?” 

“ This summer.” 

Helen’s eyes lit up with a fire of delight. “ How 
nice! May I go with you?” she cried. 

Thorpe shook his head. 

“ I’m afraid not, little girl. It’s going to be a hard 
trip a long ways from anywhere. You couldn’t stand 
it.” 

“ I’m sure I could. Try me.” 

“ No,” replied Thorpe. “ I know you couldn’t. 
We’ll be sleeping on the ground and going on foot 
through much extremely difficult country.” 

“ I wish you’d take me somewhere,” pursued Helen. 
“ I can’t get away this summer unless you do. Why 
don’t you camp somewhere nearer home, so I can 
go?” 

Thorpe arose and kissed her tenderly. He was ex- 
tremely sorry that he could not spend the summer with 
his sister, but he believed likewise that their future 
depended to a great extent on this very trip. But he 
did not say so. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


109 

“ I can’t, little girl; that’s all. We’ve got our way 
to make.” 

She understood that he considered the trip too ex- 
pensive for them both. At this moment a paper flut- 
tered from the excelsior. She picked it up. A glance 
showed her a total of figures that made her gasp. 

“ Here is your bill,” she said with a strange choke 
in her voice, and left the room. 

“He can spend sixty dollars on his old guns; but 
he can’t afford to let me leave this hateful house,” 
she complained to the apple tree. “ He can go ’way 
off camping somewhere to have a good time, but he 
leaves me sweltering in this miserable little town all 
summer. I don’t care if he is supporting me. He 
ought to. He’s my brother. Oh, I wish I were a 
man; I wish I were dead!” 

Three days later Thorpe left for the north. He 
was reluctant to go. When the time came, he at- 
tempted to kiss Helen good-by. She caught sight of 
the rifle in its new leather and canvas case, and on 
a sudden impulse which she could not explain to her- 
self, she turned away her face and ran into the house 
Thorpe, vaguely hurt, a little resentful, as the genu- 
inely misunderstood are apt to be, hesitated a moment, 
then trudged down the street. Helen too paused at 
the door, choking back her grief. 

“Harry! Harry!” she cried wildly; but it was too 
late. 

Both felt themselves to be in the right. Each real- 
ized this fact in the other. Each recognized the im- 
possibility of imposing his own point of view over the 
other’s. 









THE 

BLAZED 
TR A I L 

r 

Part II 

The Landlooker 



r ? 
r 



Chapter XVI 

/ N every direction the woods. Not an opening of 
any kind offered the mind a breathing place under 
the free sky. Sometimes the pine groves, — vast, 
solemn, grand, with the patrician aloofness of the truly 
great; sometimes the hardwood, — bright, mysterious, 
full of life; sometimes the swamps, — dark, dank, 
speaking with the voices of the shyer creatures; some- 
times the spruce and balsam thickets, — aromatic, 
enticing. But never the clear, open sky. 

And always the woods creatures, in startling abun- 
dance and tameness. The solitary man with the pack- 
straps across his forehead and shoulders had never 
seen so many of them. They withdrew silently before 
him as he advanced. They accompanied him on 
either side, watching him with intelligent, bright eyes. 
They followed him stealthily for a little distance, as 
though escorting him out of their own particular ter- 
ritory. Dozens of times a day the traveller glimpsed 
the flaunting white flags of deer. Often the creatures 
would take but a few hasty jumps, and then would 
wheel, the beautiful embodiments of the picture deer, 
to snort and paw the leaves. Hundreds of birds, of 
which he did not know the name, stooped to his in- 
spection, whirred away at his approach, or went about 
their business with hardy indifference under his very 
eyes. Blase porcupines trundled superbly from his 
path. Once a mother-partridge simulated a broken 
wing, fluttering painfully. Early one morning the 
traveller ran plump on a fat lolling bear, taking his 
ease from the new sun, and his meal from a panic- 
113 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


*‘4 

stricken army of ants. As beseemed two innocent 
wayfarers they honored each other with a salute of 
surprise, and went their way. And all about and 
through, weaving, watching, moving like spirits, were 
the forest multitudes which the young man never saw, 
but which he divined, and of whose movements he 
sometimes caught for a single instant the faintest pat- 
ter or rustle. It constituted the mystery of the forest, 
that great fascinating, lovable mystery which, once it 
steals into the heart of a man, has always a hearing 
and a longing when it makes its voice heard. 

The young man’s equipment was simple in the ex- 
treme. Attached to a heavy leather belt of cartridges 
hung a two-pound ax and a sheath knife. In his 
pocket reposed a compass, an air-tight tin of matches, 
and a map drawn on oiled paper of a district divided 
into sections. Some few of the sections were colored, 
which indicated that they belonged to private parties. 
All the rest was State or Government land. He car- 
ried in his hand a repeating rifle. The pack, if opened, 
would have been found to contain a woolen and a rub- 
ber blanket, fishing tackle, twenty pounds or so of 
flour, a package of tea, sugar, a slab of bacon carefully 
wrapped in oiled cloth, salt, a suit of underwear, and 
several extra pairs of thick stockings. To the out- 
side of the pack had been strapped a frying pan, a tin 
pail, and a cup. 

For more than a week Thorpe had journeyed 
through the forest without meeting a human being, 
or seeing any indications of man, excepting always 
the old blaze of the government survey. Many years 
before, officials had run careless lines through the 
country along the section-boundaries. At this time 
the blazes were so weather-beaten that Thorpe often 
found difficulty in deciphering the indications marked 
on them. These latter stated always the section, the 
township, and the range east or west by number. All 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 115 

Thorpe had to do was to find the same figures on his 
map. He knew just where he was. By means of his 
compass he could lay his course to any point that 
suited his convenience. 

The map he had procured at the United States Land 
Office in Detroit. He had set out with the scanty 
equipment just described for the purpose of “looking ’* 
a suitable bunch of pine in the northern peninsula, 
which, at that time, was practically untouched. Ac- 
cess to its interior could be obtained only on foot or 
by river. The South Shore Railroad was already en- 
gaged in pushing a way through the virgin forest, but 
it had as yet penetrated only as far as Seney; and after 
all, had been projected more with the idea of estab- 
lishing a direct route to Duluth and the copper dis- 
tricts than to aid the lumber industry. Marquette, 
Menominee, and a few smaller places along the coast 
were lumbering near at home; but they shipped en- 
tirely by water. Although the rest of the peninsula 
also was finely wooded, a general impression obtained 
among the craft that it would prove too inaccessible 
for successful operation. 

Furthermore, at that period, a great deal of talk 
was believed as to the inexhaustibility of Michigan 
pine. Men in a position to know what they were 
talking about stated dogmatically that the forests of 
the southern peninsula would be adequate for a great 
many years to come. Furthermore, the magnificent 
timber of the Saginaw, Muskegon, and Grand River 
valleys in the southern peninsula occupied entire 
attention. No one cared to bother about property 
at so great a distance from home. As a consequence, 
few as yet knew even the extent of the resources so 
far north. 

Thorpe, however, with the far-sightedness of the 
born pioneer, had perceived that the exploitation of 
the upper country was an affair of a few years only. 


1 16 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

The forests of southern Michigan were vast, but not 
limitless; and they had all passed into private owner- 
ship. The north, on the,.other hand, would not prove 
as inaccessible as it now seemed, for the carrying trade 
would some day realize that the entire waterway of 
the Great Lakes offered an unrivalled outlet. With 
that elementary discovery would begin a rush to the 
new country. Tiring of a profitless employment fur- 
ther south he resolved to anticipate it, and by acquir- 
ing his holdings before general attention should be 
turned that way, to obtain of the best. 

He was without money, and practically without 
friends ; while Government and State lands cost re- 
spectively two dollars and a half and a dollar and a 
quarter an acre, cash down. But he relied on the 
good sense of capitalists to perceive, from the statis- 
tics which his explorations would furnish, the wonder- 
ful advantage of logging a new country with the chain 
of Great Lakes as shipping outlet at its very door. In 
return for his information, he would expect a half in- 
terest in the enterprise. This is the usual method of 
procedure adopted by landlookers everywhere. 

We have said that the country was quite new to 
logging, but the statement is not strictly accurate. 
Thorpe was by no means the first to see the money 
in northern pine. Outside the big mill districts al- 
ready named, cuttings of considerable size were al- 
ready under way, the logs from which were usually 
sold to the mills of Marquette or Menominee. Here 
and there along the best streams, men had already 
begun operations. 

But they worked on a small scale and with an eye 
to the immediate present only; bending their efforts 
to as large a cut as possible each season rather than 
to the acquisition of holdings for future operations. 
This they accomplished naively by purchasing one 
forty and cutting a dozen. Thorpe’s map showed 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


117 


often near the forks of an important stream a section 
whose coloring indicated private possession. Legally 
the owners had the right only to the pine included in 
the marked sections; but if anyone had taken the 
trouble to visit the district, he would have found oper- 
ations going on for miles up and down stream. The 
colored squares would prove to be nothing but so 
many excuses for being on the ground. The bulk 
of the pine of any season’s cut he would discover 
had been stolen from unbought State or Government 
land. 

This in the old days was a common enough trick. 
One man, at present a wealthy and respected citizen, 
cut for six years, and owned just one forty-acres! 
Another logged nearly fifty million feet from an 
eighty ! In the State to-day live prominent business 
men, looked upon as models in every way, good fel- 
lows, good citizens, with sons and daughters proud 
of their social position, who, nevertheless, made the 
bulk of their fortunes by stealing Government pine. 

“ What you want to-day, old man ? ” inquired a 
wholesale lumber dealer of an individual whose name 
now stands for domestic and civic virtue. 

“ I’ll have five or six million saw logs to sell you 
in the spring, and I want to know what you’ll give 
for them.” 

“Go on!” expostulated the dealer with a laugh* 
“ ain’t you got that forty all cut yet? ” 

“ She holds out pretty well,” replied the other with 
a grin. 

An official, called the Inspector, is supposed to re- 
port such stealings, after which another official is to 
prosecute. Aside from the fact that the danger of 
discovery is practically zero in so wild and distant a 
country, it is fairly well established that the old-time 
logger found these two individuals susceptible to the 
gentle art of “ sugaring.” The officials, as well as- the 


1 18 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

lumberman, became rich. If worst came to worst, 
and investigation seemed imminent, the operator 
could still purchase the land at legal rates, and so 
escape trouble. But the intention to appropriate was 
there, and, to confess the truth, the whitewashing by 
purchase needed but rarely to be employed. I have 
time and again heard landlookers assert that the old 
Land Offices were rarely “ on the square,” but as to 
that I cannot, of course, venture an opinion. 

Thorpe was perfectly conversant with this state of 
affairs. He knew, also, that in all probability many 
of the colored districts on his map represented firms 
engaged in steals of greater or less magnitude. He 
was further aware that most of the concerns stole the 
timber because it was cheaper to steal than to buy; 
but that they would buy readily enough if forced to 
do so in order to prevent its acquisition by another. 
This other might be himself. In his exploration, 
therefore, he decided to employ the utmost circum- 
spection. As much as possible he purposed to avoid 
other men; but if meetings became inevitable, he hoped 
to mask his real intentions. He would pose as a 
hunter and fisherman. 

During the course of his week in the woods, he 
discovered that he would be forced eventually to resort 
to this expedient. He encountered quantities of fine 
timber in the country through which he travelled, and 
some day it would be logged, but at present the diffi- 
culties were too great. The streams were shallow, 
or they did not empty into a good shipping port. In- 
vestors would naturally look first for holdings along 
the more practicable routes. 

A cursory glance sufficed to show that on such 
waters the little red squares had already blocked a 
foothold for other owners. Thorpe surmised that he 
would undoubtedly discover fine unbought timber 
along their banks, but that the men already engaged 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


119 

in stealing it would hardly be likely to allow him 
peaceful acquisition. 

# For a week, then, he journeyed through magnificent 
timber without finding what he sought, working al- 
ways more and more to the north, until finally he stood 
on the shores of Superior. Up to now the streams 
had not suited him. He resolved to follow the shore 
west to the mouth of a fairly large river called the 
Ossawinamakee.* It showed, in common with most 
streams of its size, land already taken, but Thorpe 
hoped to find good timber nearer the mouth. After 
several days’ hard walking with this object in view, 
he found himself directly north of a bend in the river; 
so, without troubling to hunt for its outlet into Su- 
perior, he turned through the woods due south, with 
the intention of striking in on the stream. This he 
succeeded in accomplishing some twenty miles inland, 
where also he discovered a well-defined and recently 
used trail leading up the river. Thorpe camped 
one night at the bend, and then set out to follow the 
trail. 

It led him for upwards of ten miles nearly due south, 
sometimes approaching, sometimes leaving the river, 
but keeping always in its direction. The country in 
general was rolling. Low parallel ridges of gentle 
declivity glided constantly across his way, their val- 
leys sloping to the river. Thorpe had never seen a 
grander forest of pine than that which clothed them. 

For almost three miles, after the young man had 
passed through a preliminary jungle of birch, cedar, 
spruce, and hemlock, it ran without a break, clear, 
clean, of cloud-sweeping altitude, without underbrush. 
Most of it was good bull-sap, which is known by the 
fineness of the bark, though often in the hollows it 
shaded gradually into the rough-skinned cork pine. 
In those days few people paid any attention to the 
* Accent the last syllable. 


120 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Norway, and hemlock was not even thought of. With 
every foot of the way Thorpe became more and more 
impressed. 

At first the grandeur, the remoteness, the solemnity 
of the virgin forest fell on his spirit with a kind of awe. 
The tall, straight trunks lifted directly upwards to the 
vaulted screen through which the sky seemed as re- 
mote as the ceiling of a Roman church. Ravens 
wheeled and croaked in the blue, but infinitely far 
away. Some lesser noises wove into the stillness 
without breaking the web of its splendor, for the pine 
silence laid soft, hushing fingers on the lips of those 
who might waken the sleeping sunlight. 

Then the spirit of the pioneer stirred within his soul. 
The wilderness sent forth its old-time challenge to the 
hardy. In him awoke that instinct which, without 
itself perceiving the end on which it is bent, clears the 
way for the civilization that has been ripening in old- 
world hot-houses during a thousand years. Men 
must eat; and so the soil must be made productive. 
We regret, each after his manner, the passing of the 
Indian, the buffalo, the great pine forests, for they 
are of the picturesque ; but we live gladly on the 
product of the farms that have taken their places. 
Southern Michigan was once a pine forest: now the 
twisted stump-fences about the most fertile farms of 
the north alone break the expanse of prairie and of 
trim “ wood-lots.” 

Thorpe knew little of this, and cared less. These 
feathered trees, standing close-ranked and yet each 
isolate in the dignity and gravity of a sphinx of stone, 
set to dancing his blood of the frontiersman. He 
spread out his map to make sure that so valuable a 
clump of timber remained still unclaimed. A* few 
sections lying near the headwaters were all he found 
marked as sold. He resumed his tramp light-heart- 
edly. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


121 


At the ten-mile point he came upon a dam. It was 
a crude dam, — built of logs, — whose face consisted 
of strong buttresses slanted up-stream, and whose 
sheer was made of unbarked timbers laid smoothly 
side by side at the required angle. At present its gate 
was open. Thorpe could see that it was an unusually 
large gate, with a powerful apparatus for the raising 
and the lowering of it. 

The purpose of the dam in this new country did not 
puzzle him in the least, but its presence bewildered 
him. Such constructions are often thrown across 
logging streams at proper intervals in order that the 
operator may be independent of the spring freshets. 
When he wishes to “ drive ” his logs to the mouth of 
the stream, he first accumulates a head of water be- 
hind his dams, and then, by lifting the gates, creates 
an artificial freshet sufficient to float his timber to the 
pool formed by the next dam below. The device is 
common enough; but it is expensive. People do not 
build dams except in the certainty of some years of 
logging, and quite extensive logging at that. If the 
stream happens to be navigable, the promoter must 
first get an Improvement Charter from a board of 
control appointed by the State. So Thorpe knew that 
he had to deal, not with a hand-to-mouth-timber-thief, 
but with a great company preparing to log the country 
on a big scale. 

He continued his journey. At noon he came to 
another and similar structure. The pine forest had 
yielded to knolls of hardwood separated by swamp- 
holes of blackthorn. Here he left his pack and pushed 
ahead in light marching order. About eight miles 
above the first dam, and eighteen from the bend of 
the *river, he ran into a “ slashing ” of the year before. 
The decapitated stumps were already beginning to 
turn brown with weather, the tangle of tops and limbs 
was partially concealed by poplar growths and wild 


122 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


raspberry vines. Parenthetically, it may be remarked 
that the promptitude with which these growths suc- 
ceed the cutting of the pine is an inexplicable marvel. 
Clear forty acres at random in the very center of a 
pine forest, without a tract of poplar within an hun- 
dred miles ; the next season will bring up the fresh 
shoots. Some claim that blue jays bring the seeds in 
their crops. Others incline to the theory that the 
creative elements lie dormant in the soil, needing only 
the sun to start them to life. Final speculation is 
impossible, but the fact stands. 

To Thorpe this particular clearing became at once 
of the greatest interest. He scrambled over and 
through the ugly debris which for a year or two after 
logging operations cumbers the ground. By a rather 
prolonged search he found what he sought, — the 
“ section corners ” of the tract, on which the govern- 
ment surveyor had long ago marked the “ descrip- 
tions.” A glance at the map confirmed his suspicions. 
The slashing lay some two miles north of the sections 
designated as belonging to private parties. It was 
Government land. 

Thorpe sat down, lit a pipe, and did a little thinking. 

As an axiom it may be premised that the shorter 
the distance logs have to be transported, the less it 
costs to get them in. Now Thorpe had that very 
morning passed through beautiful timber lying much 
nearer the mouth of the river than either this, or the 
sections further south. Why had these men delib- 
erately ascended the stream? Why had they stolen 
timber eighteen miles from the bend, when they could 
equally well have stolen just as good fourteen miles 
nearer the terminus of their drive? 

Thorpe ruminated for some time without hitting 
upon a solution. Then suddenly he remembered the 
two dams, and his idea that the men in charge of the 
river must be wealthy and must intend operating on 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


123 

a large scale. He thought he glimpsed it. After an- 
other pipe, he felt sure. 

The Unknowns were indeed going in on a large 
scale. They intended eventually to log the whole of 
the Ossawinamakee basin. For this reason they had 
made their first purchase, planted their first foot-hold, 
near the headwaters. Furthermore, located as they 
were far from a present or an immediately future civ- 
ilization, they had felt safe in leaving for the moment 
their holdings represented by the three sections al- 
ready described. Some day they would buy all the 
standing Government pine in the basin ; but in the 
meantime they would steal all they could at a sufficient 
distance from the lake to minimize the danger of dis- 
covery. They had not dared to appropriate the three- 
mile tract Thorpe had passed through, because in that 
locality the theft would probably be remarked, so they 
intended eventually to buy it. Until that should be- 
come necessary, however, every stick cut meant so 
much less to purchase. 

“ They’re going to cut, and keep on cutting, work- 
ing down river as fast as they can,” argued Thorpe. 
“ If anything happens so they have to, they’ll buy in 
the pine that is left; but if things go well with them, 
they’ll take what they can for nothing. They’re get- 
ting this stuff out up-river first, because they can steal 
safer while the country is still unsettled; and even 
when it does fill up, there will not be much likelihood 
of an investigation so far in-country, — at least until 
after they have folded their tents.” 

It seems to us who are accustomed to the accurate 
policing of our twentieth century, almost incredible 
that such wholesale robberies should have gone on 
with so little danger of detection. Certainly detection 
was a matter of sufficient simplicity. Someone hap- 
pens along, like Thorpe, carrying a Government map 
in his pocket. He runs across a parcel of unclaimed 


124 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


land already cut over. It would seem easy to lodge 
a complaint, institute a prosecution against the men 
known to have put in the timber. But it is almost 
never done . % 

Thorpe knew that men occupied in so precarious a 
business would be keenly on the watch. At the first 
hint of rivalry, they would buy in the timber they had 
selected. But the situation had set his fighting blood 
to racing. The very fact that these men were thieves 
on so big a scale made him the more obstinately de- 
termined to thwart them. They undoubtedly wanted 
the tract down river. Well, so did he! 

He purposed to look it over carefully, to ascertain 
its exact boundaries and what sections it would be 
necessary to buy in order to include it, and perhaps 
even to estimate it in a rough way. In the accom- 
plishment of this he would have to spend the summer, 
and perhaps part of the fall, in that district. He could 
hardly expect to escape notice. By the indications 
on the river, he judged that a crew of men had shortly 
before taken out a drive of logs. After the timber 
had been rafted and towed to Marquette, they would 
return. He might be able to hide in the forest, but 
sooner or later, he was sure, one of the company’s 
landlookers or hunters would stumble on his camp. 
Then his very concealment would tell them what he 
was after. The risk was too great. For above all 
things Thorpe needed time. He had, as has been said, 
to ascertain what he could offer. Then he had to 
offer it. He would be forced to interest capital, and 
that is a matter of persuasion and leisure. 

Finally his shrewd, intuitive good-sense flashed tne 
solution on him. He returned rapidly to his pack, 
assumed the straps, and arrived at the first dam about 
dark of the long summer day. 

There he looked carefully about him. Some fifty 
feet from the water’s edge a birch knoll supported, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


12 5 


besides the birches, a single big hemlock. With his 
belt ax, Thorpe cleared away the little white trees. 
He stuck the sharpened end of one of them in the bark 
of the shaggy hemlock, fastened the other end in a 
crotch eight or ten feet distant, slanted the rest of the 
saplings along one side of this ridge pole, and turned 
in, after a hasty supper, leaving the completion of his 
permanent camp to the morrow. 


Chapter XVII 

/ N the morning' he thatched smooth the roof of 
the shelter, using for the purpose the thick 
branches of hemlocks; placed two green spruce 
logs side by side as cooking range; slung his pot on 
a rod across two forked sticks; cut and split a quan- 
tity of wood; spread his blankets; and called himself 
established. His beard was already well grown, and 
his clothes had become worn by the brush and faded 
by the sun and rain. In the course of the morning 
he lay in wait very patiently near a spot overflowed 
by the river, where, the day before, he had noticed 
lily-pads growing. After a time a doe and a spotted 
fawn came and stood ankle-deep in the water, and ate 
of the lily-pads. Thorpe lurked motionless behind his 
screen of leaves; and as he had taken the precaution 
so to station himself that his hiding-place lay down- 
wind, the beautiful animals were unaware of his pres- 
ence. 

By and by a prong-buck joined them. He was a 
two-year-old, young, tender, with the velvet just off 
his antlers. Thorpe aimed at his shoulder, six inches 
above the belly-line, and pressed the trigger. As 
though by enchantment the three woods creatures dis- 
appeared. But the hunter had noticed that, whereas 
the doe and fawn flourished bravely the broad white 
flags of their tails, the buck had seemed but a streak 
of brown. By this he knew he had hit. 

Sure enough, after two hundred yards of following 
the prints of sharp hoofs and occasional gobbets of 
blood on the leaves, he came upon his prey dead. It 
126 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


12 7 


became necessary to transport the animal to camp. 
Thorpe stuck his hunting knife deep into the front of 
the deer’s chest, where the neck joins, which allowed 
most of the blood to drain away. Then he fastened 
wild grape vines about the antlers, and, with a little 
exertion drew the body after him as though it had 
been a toboggan. 

It slid more easily than one would imagine, along 
the grain ; but not as easily as by some other methods 
with which Thorpe was unfamiliar. 

At camp he skinned the deer, cut most of the meat 
into thin strips which he salted and placed in the sun 
to dry, and hung the remainder in a cool arbor of 
boughs. The hide he suspended over a pole. 

All these things he did hastily, as though he might 
be in a hurry; as indeed he was. 

At noon he cooked himself a venison steak and 
some tea. Then with his hatchet he cut several small 
pine poles, which he fashioned roughly in a number 
of shapes and put aside for the future. The brains of 
the deer, saved for the purpose, he boiled with water 
in his tin pail, wishing it were larger. With the liquor 
thus obtained he intended later to remove the hair and 
grain from the deer hide. Toward evening he caught 
a dozen trout in the pool below the dam. These he 
ate for supper. 

Next day he spread the buck’s hide out on the 
ground and drenched it liberally with the product of 
deer-brains. Later the hide was soaked in the river, 
after which, by means of a rough two-handled spatula, 
Thorpe was enabled after much labor to scrape away 
entirely the hair and grain. He cut from the edge of 
the hide a number of long strips of raw-hide, but 
anointed the body of the skin liberally with the brain 
liquor. 

“ Glad I don’t have to do that every day! ” he com- 
mented, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. 


128 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


As the skin dried he worked and kneaded it to soft- 
ness. The result was a fair quality of white buckskin, 
the first Thorpe had ever made. If wetted, it would 
harden dry and stiff. Thorough smoking in the fumes 
of punk maple would obviate this, but that detail 
Thorpe left until later. 

“ I don’t know whether it’s all necessary,” he said 
to himself doubtfully, “ but if you’re going to assume 
a disguise, let it be a good one.” 

In the meantime, he had bound together with his 
rawhide thongs several of the oddly shaped pine tim- 
bers to form a species of dead-fall trap. It was slow 
work, for Thorpe’s knowledge of such things was the- 
oretical. He had learned his theory well, however, 
and in the end arrived. 

All this time he had made no effort to look over 
the pine, nor did he intend to begin until he could 
be sure of doing so in safety. His object now was 
to give his knoll the appearances of a trapper’s 
camp. 

Towards the end of the week he received his first 
visit. Evening was drawing on, and Thorpe was bus- 
ily engaged in cooking a panful of trout, resting the 
frying pan across the two green spruce logs between 
which glowed the coals. Suddenly he became aware 
of a presence at his side. How it had reached the 
spot he could not imagine, for he had heard no ap- 
proach. He looked up quickly. 

“ How do,” greeted the newcomer gravely. 

The man was an Indian, silent, solemn, with the 
straight, unwinking gaze of his race. 

“ How do,” replied Thorpe. 

The Indian without further ceremony threw his pack 
to the ground, and, squatting on his heels, watched 
the white man’s preparations. When the meal was 
cooked, he coolly produced a knife, selected a clean 
bit of hemlock bark, and helped himself. Then he lit 



Suddenly he became aware of a presence 
at his side . 






. 






THE BLAZED TRAIL 


129 

a pipe, and gazed keenly about him. The buckskin 
interested him. 

“ No good/’ said he, feeling of its texture. 

Thorpe laughed. “ Not very,” he confessed. 

“ Good,” continued the Indian, touching lightly his 
own moccasins. 

“ What you do ? ” he inquired after a long silence, 
punctuated by the puffs of tobacco. 

“ Hunt; trap; fish,” replied Thorpe with equal sen- 
tentiousness. 

“ Good,” concluded the Indian, after a ruminative 
pause. 

That night he slept on the ground. Next day he 
made a better shelter than Thorpe’s in less than half 
the time; and was off hunting before the sun was an 
hour high. He was armed with an old-fashioned 
smooth-bore muzzle-loader; and Thorpe was aston- 
ished, after he had become better acquainted with his 
new companion’s methods, to find that he hunted deer 
with fine bird shot. The Indian never expected to 
kill or even mortally wound his game; but he would 
follow for miles the blood drops caused by his little 
wounds, until the animals in sheer exhaustion allowed 
him to approach close enough for a dispatching blow. 
At two o’clock he returned with a small buck, tied 
scientifically together for toting, with the waste parts 
cut away, but every ounce of utility retained. 

“I show,” said the Indian: — and he did. Thorpe 
learned the Indian tan; of what use are the hollow 
shank bones; how the spinal cord is the toughest, soft- 
est, and most pliable sewing-thread known. 

The Indian appeared to intend making the birch- 
knoll his permanent headquarters. Thorpe was at 
first a little suspicious of his new companion, but the 
man appeared scrupulously honest, was never in- 
trusive, and even seemed genuinely desirous of teach- 
ing the white little tricks of the woods brought to their 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


13° 

perfection by the Indian alone. He ended by liking 
him. The two rarely spoke. They merely sat near 
each other, and smoked. One evening the Indian 
suddenly remarked: 

“ You look ’urn tree.” 

“ What’s that?” cried Thorpe, startled. 

“ You no hunter, no trapper. You look ’um tree, 
for make ’um lumber.” 

The white had not begun as yet his explorations. 
He did not dare until the return of the logging crew 
or the passing of someone in authority at the up-river 
camp, for he wished first to establish in their minds 
the innocence of hk> intentions. 

“ What makes you think that, Charley?” he asked. 

“ You good man in woods,” replied Injin Charley 
sententiously, “ I tell by way you look at him pine.” 

Thorpe ruminated. 

“ Charley,” said he, “ why are you staying here with 
me? ” 

“ Big frien’,” replied the Indian promptly. 

“ Why are you my friend ? What have I ever done 
for you? ” 

“ You gottum chief’s eye,” replied his companion 
with simplicity. 

Thorpe looked at the Indian again. There seemed 
to be only one course. 

“Yes, I’m a lumberman,” he confessed, “and I’m 
looking for pine. But, Charley, the men up the river 
must not know what I’m after.” 

“ They gettum pine,” interjected the Indian like a 
flash. 

“ Exactly,” replied Thorpe, surprised afresh at the 
other’s perspicacity. 

“ Good! ” ejaculated Injin Charley, and fell silent. 

With this, the longest conversation the two had at- 
tempted in their peculiar acquaintance, Thorpe was 
forced to be content. He was, however, ill at ease 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


» 3 ' 

over the incident. It added an element of uncertainty 
to an already precarious position. 

Three days later he was intensely thankful the con- 
versation had taken place. 

After the noon meal he lay on his blanket under the 
hemlock shelter, smoking and lazily watching Injin 
Charley busy at the side of the trail. The Indian had 
terminated a long two days’ search by toting from the 
forest a number of strips of the outer bark of white 
birch, in its green state pliable as cotton, thick as 
leather, and light as air. These he had cut into ar- 
bitrary patterns known only to himself, and was now 
sewing as a long shapeless sort of bag or sac to a 
slender beech-wood oval. Later it was to become a 
birch-bark canoe, and the beech-wood oval would be 
the gunwale. 

So idly intent was Thorpe on this piece of construc- 
tion that he did not notice the approach of two men 
from the down-stream side. They were short, alert 
men, plodding along with the knee-bent persistency 
of the woods-walker, dressed in broad hats, flannel 
shirts, coarse trousers tucked in high laced “ cruis- 
ers”; and carrying each a bulging meal sack looped 
by a cord across the shoulders and chest. Both were 
armed with long slender scaler’s rules. The first in- 
timation Thorpe received of the presence of these two 
men was the sound of their voices addressing Injin 
Charley. 

“ Hullo Charley,” said one of them, “ what you 
doing here? Ain’t seen you since th’ Sturgeon dis- 
trict.” 

“ Mak’ ’urn canoe,” replied Charley rather ob- 
viously. 

“ So I see. But what you expect to get in this God- 
forsaken country? ” 

“ Beaver, muskrat, mink, otter.” 

“ Trapping, eh?” The man gazed keenly at 


131 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

Thorpe’s recumbent figure. “ Who’s the other fel- 
low? ” 

Thorpe held his breath; then exhaled it in a long 
sigh of relief. 

“ Him white man,” Injin Charley was replying, 
“ him hunt too. He mak’ ’um buckskin.” 

The landlooker arose lazily and sauntered toward 
the group. It was part of his plan to be well recog- 
nized so that in the future he might arouse no sus- 
picions. 

“ Howdy,” he drawled, “ got any smokin’? ” 

“ How are you,” replied one of the scalers, eying 
him sharply, and tendering his pouch. Thorpe filled 
his pipe deliberately, and returned it with a heavy- 
lidded glance of thanks. To all appearances he was 
one of the lazy, shiftless white hunters of the back- 
woods. Seized with an inspiration, he said, “ What 
sort of chances is they at your camp for a little flour? 
Me and Charley’s about out. I’ll bring you meat; or 
I’ll make you boys moccasins. I got some good 
buckskin.” 

It was the usual proposition. 

“ Pretty good, I guess. Come up and see,” ad- 
vised the scaler. “ The crew’s right behind us.” 

“ I’ll send up Charley,” drawled Thorpe, “ I’m busy 
now makin’ traps,” he waved his pipe, calling atten- 
tion to the pine and rawhide dead-falls. 

They chatted a few moments, practically and with 
an eye to the strict utility of things about them, as 
became woodsmen. Then two wagons creaked lurch- 
ing by, followed by fifteen or twenty men. The last 
of these, evidently the foreman, was joined by the two 
scalers. 

“What’s that outfit?” he inquired with the sharp- 
ness of suspicion. 

“Old In jin Charley — you remember, the old boy 
that tanned that buck for you down on Cedar Creek.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


133 


" Yes, but the other fellow.” 

“ Oh, a hunter,” replied the scaler carelessly. 

“ Sure?” 

The man laughed. “ Couldn’t be nothin’ else,” he 
asserted with confidence. “ Regular old backwoods 
mossback.” 

At the same time Injin Charley was setting about 
the splitting of a cedar log. 

“ You see,” he remarked, “ I big frien’.” 


Chapter XVIII 

/ N the days that followed, Thorpe cruised about 
the great woods. It was slow business, but fasci- 
nating. He knew that when he should embark 
on his attempt to enlist considerable capital in an “ un- 
sight unseen ” investment, he would have to be well 
supplied with statistics. True, he was not much of a 
timber estimator, nor did he know the methods usually 
employed, but his experience, observation, and read- 
ing had developed a latent sixth sense by which he 
could appreciate quality, difficulties of logging, and 
such kindred practical matters. 

First of all he walked over the country at large, to 
find where the best timber lay. This was a matter of 
tramping; though often on an elevation he succeeded 
in climbing a tall tree whence he caught bird’s-eye 
views of the country at large. He always carried his 
gun with him, and was prepared at a moment’s notice 
to seem engaged in hunting, — either for game or for 
spots in which later to set his traps. The expedient 
was, however, unnecessary. 

Next he ascertained the geographical location of 
the different clumps and forests, entering the sections, 
the quarter-sections, even the separate forties in his 
note-book; taking in only the “ descriptions ” contain- 
ing the best pine. 

Finally he wrote accurate notes concerning the 
topography of each and every pine district, — the lay 
of the land; the hills, ravines, swamps, and valleys; the 
distance from the river; the character of the soil. In 
short, he accumulated all the information he could by 
which the cost of logging might be estimated. 

134 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 135 

The work went much quicker than he had antici- 
pated, mainly because he could give his entire atten- 
tion to it. Injin Charley attended to the commissary, 
with a delight in the process that removed it from the 
category of work. When it rained, an infrequent 
occurrence, the two hung Thorpe’s rubber blankets 
before the opening of the driest shelter, and waited 
philosophically for the weather to clear. Injin 
Charley had finished the first canoe, and was now 
leisurely at work on another. Thorpe had filled his 
note-book with the class of statistics just described. 
He decided now to attempt an estimate of the timber. 

For this he had really too little experience. He 
knew it, but determined to do his best. The weak 
point of his whole scheme lay in that it was going to 
be impossible for him to allow the prospective pur- 
chaser a chance of examining the pine. That difficulty 
Thorpe hoped to overcome by inspiring personal con- 
fidence in himself. If he failed to do so, he might 
return with a landlooker whom the investor trusted, 
and the two could re-enact the comedy of this summer. 
Thorpe hoped, however, to avoid the necessity. It 
would be too dangerous. He set about a rough esti- 
mate of the timber. 

Injin Charley intended evidently to work up a trade 
in buckskin during the coming winter. Although 
the skins were in poor condition at this time of the 
year, he tanned three more, and smoked them. In 
the day-time he looked the country over as carefully 
as did Thorpe. But he ignored the pines, and paid 
attention only to the hardwood and the beds of little 
creeks. Injin Charley was in reality a trapper, and 
he intended to get many fine skins in this promising 
district. He worked on his tanning and his canoe- 
making late in the afternoon. 

One evening just at sunset Thorpe was helping the 
Indian shape his craft. The loose sac of birch-bark 


136 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

sewed to the long beech oval was slung between two 
tripods. Injin Charley had fashioned a number of 
thin, flexible cedar strips of certain arbitrary lengths 
and widths. Beginning with the smallest of these, 
Thorpe and his companion were catching one end under 
the beech oval, bending the strip bow-shape inside the 
sac, and catching again the other side of the oval. 
Thus the spring of the bent cedar, pressing against the 
inside of the birch-bark sac, distended it tightly. The 
cut of the sac and the length of the cedar strips gave 
to the canoe its graceful shape. 

The two men bent there at their task, the dull glow 
of evening falling upon them. Behind them the knoll 
stood out in picturesque relief against the darker pine, 
— the little shelters, the fire-places of green spruce, 
the blankets, the guns, a deer’s carcass suspended 
by the feet from a cross pole, the drying buckskin 
on either side. The river rushed by with a never- 
ending roar and turmoil. Through its shouting one 
perceived, as through a mist, the still lofty peace of 
evening. 

A young fellow, hardly more than a boy, exclaimed 
with keen delight of the picturesque as his canoe shot 
around the bend into sight of it. 

The canoe was large and powerful, but well filled. 
An Indian knelt in the stern; amidships was well laden 
with duffle of all descriptions; then the young fellow 
sat in the bow. He was a bright-faced, eager-eyed, 
curly-haired young fellow, all enthusiasm and fire. His 
figure was trim and clean, but rather slender ; and his 
movements were quick but nervous. When he stepped 
carefully out on the flat rock to which his guide brought 
the canoe with a swirl of the paddle, one initiated would 
have seen that his clothes, while strong and service- 
able, had been bought from a sporting catalogue. 
There was a trimness, a neatness, about them. 

“ This is a good place,” he said to the guide, “ we’ll 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


137 

camp here.” Then he turned up the steep bank with- 
out looking back. 

“ Hullo ! ” he called in a cheerful, unembarrassed 
fashion to Thorpe and Charley. “ How are you? 
Care if I camp here? What you making? By Jove! 
I never saw a canoe made before. I’m going to watch 
you. Keep right at it.” 

He sat on one of the outcropping boulders and took 
off his hat. 

“ Say! you’ve got a great place here! You here all 
summer? Hullo! you’ve got a deer hanging up. Are 
there many of ’em around here ? I’d like to kill a deer 
first rate. I never have. It’s sort of out of season now, 
isn’t it?” 

“We only kill the bucks,” replied Thorpe. 

“ I like fishing, too,” went on the boy; “ are there 
any here? In the pool? John,” he called to his guide, 
“ bring me my fishing tackle.” 

In a few moments he was whipping the pool with 
long, graceful drops of the fly. He proved to be adept. 
Thorpe and Injin Charley stopped work to watch him. 
At first the Indian’s stolid countenance seemed a trifle 
doubtful. After a time it cleared. 

“ Good! ” he grunted. 

“ You do that well,” Thorpe remarked. “ Is it diffi- 
cult ? ” 

“ It takes practice,” replied the boy. “ See that 
riffle?” He whipped the fly lightly within six inches 
of a little suction hole; a fish at once rose and struck. 

The others had been little fellows and easily handled. 
At the end of fifteen minutes the newcomer landed a 
fine two-pounder. 

“ That must be fun,” commented Thorpe. “ I never 
happened to get in with fly-fishing. I’d like to try it 
sometime.” 

“ Try it now ! ” urged the boy, enchanted that he 
could teach a woodsman anything. 


138 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

“ No,” Thorpe declined, “ not to-night, to-morrow 
perhaps.” 

The other Indian had by now finished the erection 
of a tent, and had begun to cook supper over a little 
sheet-iron camp stove. Thorpe and Charley could 
smell ham. 

“ You’ve got quite a pantry,” remarked Thorpe. 

“ Won’t you eat with me? ” proffered the boy hos- 
pitably. 

But Thorpe declined. He could, however, see 
canned goods, hard tack, and condensed milk. 

In the course of the evening the boy approached the 
older man’s camp, and, with a charming diffidence, 
asked permission to sit awhile at their fire. 

He was full of delight over everything that savored 
of the woods, or woodscraft. The most trivial and 
everyday affairs of the life interested him. His eager 
questions, so frankly proffered, aroused even the taci- 
turn Charley to eloquence. The construction of the 
shelter, the cut of a deer’s hide, the simple process of 
“ jerking ” venison, — all these awakened his enthu- 
siasm. 

“ It must be good to live in the woods,” he said with 
a sigh, “ to do all things for yourself. It’s so free! ” 

The men’s moccasins interested him. He asked a 
dozen questions about them, — how they were cut, 
whether they did not hurt the feet, how long they 
would wear. He seemed surprised to learn that they 
are excellent in cold weather. 

“ I thought any leather would wet through in the 
snow! ” he cried. “ I wish I could get a pair some- 
where!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know where I 
could buy any, do you? ” he asked of Thorpe. 

“ I don’t know,” answered he, “ perhaps Charley 
here will make you a pair.” 

“ Will you, Charley? ” cried the boy. 

<f I mak’ him,” replied the Indian stolidly. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


»39 

The many-voiced night of the woods descended close 
about the little camp fire, and its soft breezes wafted 
stray sparks here and there like errant stars. The 
newcomer, with shining eyes, breathed deep in satis- 
faction. He was keenly alive to the romance, the 
grandeur, the mystery, the beauty of the littlest things, 
seeming to derive a deep and solid contentment from 
the mere contemplation of the woods and its ways and 
creatures. 

“I just do love this!” he cried again and again. 
“ Oh, it’s great, after all that fuss down there! ” and he 
cried it so fervently that the other men present smiled; 
but so genuinely that the smile had in it nothing but 
kindliness. 

“ I came out for a month,” said he suddenly, “ and 
I guess I’ll stay the rest of it right here. You’ll let 
me go with you sometimes hunting, won’t you?” he 
appealed to them with the sudden open-heartedness 
of a child. “ I’d like first rate to kill a deer.” 

“ Sure,” said Thorpe, “ glad to have you.” 

“ My name is Wallace Carpenter,” said the boy with 
a sudden unmistakable air of good-breeding. 

“ Well,” laughed Thorpe, “ two old woods loafers 
like us haven’t got much use for names. Charley here 
is called Geezigut, and mine’s nearly as bad; but I 
guess plain Charley and Harry will do.” 

“ All right, Harry,” replied Wallace. 

After the young fellow had crawled into the sleeping 
bag which his guide had spread for him over a fragrant 
layer of hemlock and balsam, Thorpe and his com- 
panion smoked one more pipe. The whip-poor-wills 
called back and forth across the river. Down in the 
thicket, fine, clear, beautiful, like the silver thread of 
a dream, came the notes of the white-throat — the 
nightingale of the North. Injin Charley knocked the 
last ashes from his pipe. 

“ Him nice boy! ” said he. 


Chapter XIX 

r HE young fellow stayed three weeks, and was 
a constant joy to Thorpe. His enthusiasms 
were so whole-souled; his delight so perpetual; 
his interest so fresh! The most trivial expedients of 
woods lore seemed to him wonderful. A dozen times 
a day he exclaimed in admiration or surprise over some 
bit of woodcraft practiced by Thorpe or one of the 
Indians. 

“ Do you mean to say you have lived here six weeks 
and only brought in what you could carry on your 
backs!” he cried. 

“ Sure,” Thorpe replied. 

“ Harry, you’re wonderful! I’ve got a whole canoe 
load, and imagined I was travelling light and roughing 
it. You beat Robinson Crusoe! He had a whole ship 
to draw from.” 

“ My man Friday helps me out,” answered Thorpe, 
laughingly indicating Injin Charley. 

Nearly a week passed before Wallace managed to 
kill a deer. The animals were plenty enough; but the 
young man’s volatile and eager attention stole his 
patience. And what few running shots offered, he 
missed, mainly because of buck fever. Finally, by a 
lucky chance, he broke a four-year-old’s neck, drop- 
ping him in his tracks. The hunter was delighted. 
He insisted on doing everything for himself — cruel 
hard work it was too — including the toting and skin- 
ning. Even the tanning he had a share in. At first 
he wanted the hide cured, “ with the hair on.” Injin 
Charley explained that the fur would drop out. It 
was the wrong season of the year for pelts. 

140 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


141 

Then we’ll have buckskin and I’ll get a buckskin 
shirt out of it,” suggested Wallace. 

Injin Charley agreed. One day Wallace returned 
from fishing in the pool to find that the Indian had 
cut out the garment, and was already sewing it to- 
gether. 

“ Oh ! ” he cried, a little disappointed, “ I wanted to 
see it done!” 

Injin Charley merely grunted. To make a buckskin 
shirt requires the hides of three deer. Charley had 
supplied the other two, and wished to keep the young 
man from finding it out. 

Wallace assumed the woods life as a man would 
assume an unaccustomed garment. It sat him well, 
and he learned fast, but he was always conscious of it. 
He liked to wear moccasins, and a deer knife; he liked 
to cook his own supper, or pluck the fragrant hemlock 
browse for his pillow. Always he seemed to be trying 
to realize and to savor fully the charm, the picturesque- 
ness, the romance of all that he was doing and seeing. 
To Thorpe these things were a part of everyday life; 
matters of expedient or necessity. He enjoyed them, 
but subconsciously, as one enjoys an environment. 
Wallace trailed the cloak of his glories in frank admira- 
tion of their splendor. 

This double point of view brought the men very 
close together. Thorpe liked the boy because he was 
open-hearted, free from affectation, assumptive of no 
superiority, — in short, because he was direct and sin- 
cere, although in a manner totally different from 
Thorpe’s own directness and sincerity. Wallace, on 
his part, adored in Thorpe the free, open-air life, the 
adventurous quality, the quiet hidden power, the re- 
sourcefulness and self-sufficiency of the pioneer. He 
was too young as yet to go behind the picturesque or 
romantic; so he never thought to inquire of himself 
what Thorpe did there in the wilderness, or indeed if 


142 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


he did anything at all. He accepted Thorpe for what 
he thought him to be, rather than for what he might 
think him to be. Thus he reposed unbounded confi- 
dence in him. 

After a while, observing the absolute ingenuousness 
of the boy, Thorpe used to take him from time to time 
on some of his daily trips to the pines. Necessarily 
he explained partially his position and the need of 
secrecy. Wallace was immensely excited and impor- 
tant at learning a secret of such moment, and deeply 
flattered at being entrusted with it. 

Some may think that here, considering the magni- 
tude of the interests involved, Thorpe committed an 
indiscretion. It may be; but if so, it was practically 
an inevitable indiscretion. Strong, reticent characters 
like Thorpe's prove the need from time ,to time of 
violating their own natures, of running counter to 
their ordinary habits of mind and deed. It is a neces- 
sary relaxation of the strenuous, a debauch of the soul. 
Its analogy in the lower plane is to be found in the 
dissipations of men of genius; or still lower in the 
orgies of fighters out of training. Sooner or later 
Thorpe was sure to emerge for a brief space from that 
iron-bound silence of the spirit, of which he himself 
was the least aware. It was not so much a hunger for 
affection, as the desire of a strong man temporarily to 
get away from his strength. Wallace Carpenter be- 
came in his case the exception to prove the rule. 

Little by little the eager questionings of the youth 
extracted a full statement of the situation. He learned 
of the timber-thieves up the river, of their present 
operations; and their probable plans; of the valuable 
pine lying still unclaimed; of Thorpe’s stealthy raid 
into the enemy’s country. It looked big to him, — 
epic! These were tremendous forces in motion, here 
was intrigue, here was direct practical application of 
the powers he had been playing with. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


•43 

“Why, it’s great! It’s better than any book I ever 
read! ” 

He wanted to know what he could do to help. 

“ Nothing except keep quiet,” replied Thorpe, al- 
ready uneasy, not lest the boy should prove unreliable, 
but lest his very eagerness to seem unconcerned should 
arouse suspicion. “ You mustn’t try to act any dif- 
ferent. If the men from up-river come by, be just as 
cordial to them as you can, and don’t act mysterious 
and important.” 

“ All right,” agreed Wallace, bubbling with excite- 
ment. “ And then what do you do — after you get the 
timber estimated?” 

“ I’ll go South and try, quietly, to raise some money. 
That will be difficult, because, you see, people don’t 
know me; and I am not in a position to let them look 
over the timber. Of course it will be merely a ques- 
tion of my judgment. They can go themselves to the 
Land Office and pay their money. There won’t be 
any chance of my making way with that. The investors 
will become possessed of certain ‘ descriptions ’ lying 
in this country, all right enough. The rub is, will 
they have enough confidence in me and my judgment 
to believe the timber to be what I represent it?” 

“ I see,” commented Wallace, suddenly grave. 

That evening Injin Charley went on with his canoe 
building. He melted together in a pot, resin and pitch. 
The proportion he determined by experiment, for the 
mixture had to be neither hard enough to crack nor 
soft enough to melt in the sun. Then he daubed the 
mess over all the seams. Wallace superintended the 
operation for a time in silence. 

“ Harry,” he said suddenly with a crisp decision new 
to his voice, “ will you take a little walk with me down 
by the dam. I want to talk with you.” 

They strolled to the edge of the bank and stood for 
a moment looking at the swirling waters. 


'44 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ I want you to tell me all about logging,” began 
Wallace. “ Start from the beginning. Suppose, for 
instance, you had bought this pine here we were talking 
about, — what would be your first move?” 

They sat side by side on a log, and Thorpe explained. 
He told of the building of the camps, the making of 
the roads; the cutting, swamping, travoying, skidding; 
the banking and driving. Unconsciously a little of the 
battle clang crept into his narrative. It became a 
struggle, a gasping tug and heave for supremacy be- 
tween the man and the wilderness. The excitement 
of war was in it. When he had finished, Wallace drew 
a deep breath. 

“ When I am home,” said he simply, “ I live in a 
big house on the Lake Shore Drive. It is heated by 
steam and lighted by electricity. I touch a button or 
turn a screw, and at once I am lighted and warmed. 
At certain hours meals are served me. I don’t know 
how they are cooked, or where the materials come 
from. Since leaving college I have spent a little time 
down town every day; and then I’ve played golf or 
tennis or ridden a horse in the park. The only real 
thing left is the sailing. The wind blows just as hard 
and' the waves mount just as high to-day as they did 
when Drake sailed. All the rest is tame. We do little 
imitations of the real thing with blue ribbons tied to 
them, and think we are camping or roughing it. This 
life of yours is glorious, is vital, it means something in 
the march of the world; — and I doubt whether ours 
does. You are subduing the wilderness, extending the 
frontier. After you will come the backwoods farmer 
to pull up the stumps; and after him the big farmer 
and the cities.” 

The young follow spoke with unexpected swiftness 
and earnestness. Thorpe looked at him in surprise. 

“ I know what you are thinking,” said the boy, 
flushing. “ You are surprised that I can be in earnest 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


145 

about anything. I’m out of school up here. Let me 
shout and play with the rest of the children/’ 

Thorpe watched him with sympathetic eyes, but with 
lips that obstinately refused to say one word. A woman 
would have felt rebuffed. The boy’s admiration, how- 
ever, rested on the foundation of the more manly quali- 
ties he had already seen in his friend. Perhaps this 
very aloofness, this very silent, steady-eyed power ap- 
pealed to him. 

“ I left college at nineteen because my father died,” 
said he. “ I am now just twenty-one. A large estate 
descended to me, and I have had to care for its invest- 
ments all alone. I have one sister, — that is all.” 

“ So have I,” cried Thorpe, and stopped. 

“ The estates have not suffered,” went on the boy 
simply. “ I have done well with them. But,” he cried 
fiercely, “ I hate it! It is petty and mean and worry- 
ing and nagging! That’s why I was so glad to get 
out in the woods.” 

He paused. 

“ Have some tobacco,” said Thorpe. 

Wallace accepted with a nod. 

“ Now, Harry, I have a proposal to make to you. 
It is this ; you need thirty thousand dollars to buy your 
land. Let me supply it, and come in as half partner.” 

An expression of doubt crossed the landlooker’s 
face. 

“ Oh please! ” cried the boy, “ I do want to get in 
something real! It will be the making of me!” 

“ Now see here,” interposed Thorpe suddenly, “ you 
don’t even know my name.” 

“ I know you,” replied the boy. 

“ My name is Harry Thorpe,” pursued the other. 
“ My father was Henry Thorpe, an embezzler.” 

“ "Harry,” replied Wallace soberly, “ I am sorry I 
made you say that. I do not care for your name — • 
except perhaps to put it in the articles of partnership, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


146 

— and I have no concern with your ancestry. I tell 
you it is a favor to let me in on this deal. I don’t 
know anything about lumbering, but I’ve got eyes. 
I can see that big timber standing up thick and tall, 
and I know people make profits in the business. It 
isn’t a question of the raw material surely, and you 
have experience.” 

“ Not so much as you think,” interposed Thorpe. 

“ There remains,” went on Wallace without atten- 
tion to Thorpe’s remark, “ only the question of ” 

“ My honesty,” interjected Thorpe grimly. 

“ No! ” cried the boy hotly, “ of your letting me in 
on a good thing! ” 

Thorpe considered a few moments in silence. 

“ Wallace,” he said gravely at last, “ I honestly do 
think that whoever goes into this deal with me will 
make money. Of course there’s always chances against 
it. But I am going to do my best. I’ve seen other men 
fail at it, and the reason they’ve failed is because they 
did not demand success of others and of themselves. 
That’s it; success! When a general commanding 
troops receives a report on something he’s ordered 
done, he does not trouble himself with excuses; — he 
merely asks whether or not the thing was accomplished. 
Difficulties don’t count. It is a soldier’s duty to per- 
form the impossible. Well, that’s the way it ought to 
be with us. A man has no right to come to me and 
say, ‘ I failed because such and such things happened.’ 
Either he should succeed in spite of it all; or he should 
step up and take his medicine without whining. Well, 
I’m going to succeed!” 

The man’s accustomed aloofness had gone. His 
eye flashed, his brow frowned, the muscles of his cheeks 
contracted under his beard. In the bronze light of 
evening he looked like a fire-breathing statue to that 
great ruthless god he had himself invoked, — Success. 

Wallace gazed at him with fascinated admiration. 





u Oh , please ! ” cried the boy , u 1 do want 
to get in something real ! ” 

























































































































t 




































































I 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


*47 


“ Then you will?” he asked tremulously. 

“ Wallace,” he replied again, “ they’ll say you have 
been the victim of an adventurer, but the result will 
prove them wrong. If I weren’t perfectly sure of this, 
I wouldn’t think of it, for I like you, and I know you 
want to go into this more out of friendship for me and 
because your imagination is touched, than from any 
business sense. But I’ll accept, gladly. And I’ll do 
my best! ” 

“Hooray!” cried the boy, throwing his cap up in 
the air. “ We’ll do ’em up in the first round! ” 

At last when Wallace Carpenter reluctantly quitted 
his friends on the Ossawinamakee, he insisted on 
leaving with them a variety of the things he had 
brought. 

“ I’m through with them,” said he. “ Next time I 
come up here we’ll have a camp of our own, won’t we, 
Harry? And I do feel that I am awfully in you fellows’ 
debt. You’ve given me the best time I have ever had 
in my life, and you’ve refused payment for the mocca- 
sins and things you’ve made for me. I’d feel much 
better if you’d accept them, — just as keepsakes.” 

V All right, Wallace,” replied Thorpe, “ and much 
obliged.” 

“ Don’t forget to come straight to me when you get 
through estimating, now, will you? Come to the house 
and stay. Our compact holds now, honest Injin; 
doesn’t it?” asked the boy anxiously. 

“ Honest Injin,” laughed Thorpe. “ Good-by.” 

The little canoe shot away down the current. The 
last Injin Charley and Thorpe saw of the boy was as 
he turned the curve. His hat was off and waving in 
his hand, his curls were blowing in the breeze, his 
eyes sparkled with bright good-will, and his lips parted 
in a cheery halloo of farewell. 

“ Him nice boy,” repeated Injin Charley, turning to 
his canoe. 


Chapter XX 

r HUS Thorpe and the Indian unexpectedly 
found themselves in the possession of luxury. 
The outfit had not meant much to Wallace 
Carpenter, for he had bought it in the city, where such 
things are abundant and excite no remark; but to the 
woodsman each article possessed a separate and par- 
ticular value. The tent, an iron kettle, a side of bacon, 
oatmeal, tea, matches, sugar, some canned goods, a 
box of hard-tack, — these, in the woods, represented 
wealth. Wallace’s rifle chambered the .38 Winchester 
cartridge, which was unfortunate, for Thorpe’s .44 had 
barely a magazineful left. 

The two men settled again into their customary 
ways of life. Things went much as before, except that 
the flies and mosquitoes became thick. To men as 
hardened as Thorpe and the Indian, these pests were 
not as formidable as they would have been to anyone 
directly from the city, but they were sufficiently annoy- 
ing. Thorpe’s old tin pail was pressed into service as 
a smudge-kettle. Every evening about dusk, when the 
insects first began to emerge from the dark swamps, 
Charley would build a tiny smoky fire in the bottom 
of the pail, feeding it with peat, damp moss, punk maple, 
and other inflammable smoky fuel. This censer swung 
twice or thrice about the tent, effectually cleared it. 
Besides, both men early established on their cheeks an 
invulnerable glaze of a decoction of pine tar, oil, and 
a pungent herb. Towards the close of July, however, 
the insects began sensibly to diminish, both in numbers 
and persistency. 


148 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


149 

Up to the present Thorpe had enjoyed a clear field. 
Now two men came down from above and established 
a temporary camp in the woods half a mile below the 
dam. Thorpe soon satisfied himself that they were 
picking out a route for the logging road. Plenty 
which could be cut and travoyed directly to the bank- 
ing ground lay exactly along the bank of the stream; 
but every logger possessed of a tract of timber tries 
each year to get in some that is easy to handle and 
some that is difficult. Thus the average of expense is 
maintained. 

The two men, of course, did not bother themselves 
with the timber to be travoyed, but gave their entire 
attention to that lying further back. Thorpe was en- 
abled thus to avoid them entirely. He simply trans- 
ferred his estimating to the forest by the stream. Once 
he met one of the men ; but was fortunately in a country 
that lent itself to his pose of hunter. The other he did 
not see at all. 

But one day he heard him. The two up-river men 
were following carefully but noisily the bed of a little 
creek. Thorpe happened to be on the side-hill, so he 
seated himself quietly until they should have moved on 
down. One of the men shouted to the other, who, 
crashing through a thicket, did not hear. “ Ho-o-o! 
Dyer! ” the first repeated. “ Here’s that infernal comer; 
over here! ” 

“ Yop! ” assented the other. “ Coming! ” 

Thorpe recognized the voice instantly as that of 
Radway’s scaler. His hand crisped in a gesture of 
disgust. The man had always been obnoxious to 
him. 

Two days later he stumbled on their camp. He 
paused in wonder at what he saw. 

The packs lay open, their contents scattered in every 
direction. The fire had been hastily extinguished with 
a bucket of water, and a frying pan lay where it had 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


iSo 

been overturned. If the thing had been possible, 
Thorpe would have guessed at a hasty and unpremedi- 
tated flight. 

He was about to withdraw carefully lest he be dis- 
covered, when he was startled by a touch on his elbow. 
It was Injin Charley. 

“ Dey go up river,” he said. “ I come see what de 
row.” 

The Indian examined rapidly the condition of the 
little camp. 

“ Dey look for somethin*, ” said he, making his hand 
revolve as though rummaging, and indicating the 
packs. 

“ I t’ink dey see you in de woods/* he concluded. 
" Dey go camp gettum boss. Boss he gone on river 
trail two t’ree hour.” 

“ You’re right, Charley,” replied Thorpe, who had 
been drawing his own conclusions. “ One of them 
knows me. They’ve been looking in their packs for 
their note-books with the descriptions of these sections 
in them. Then they piled out for the boss. If I know 
anything at all, the boss’ll make tracks for Detroit.” 

“ W’ot you do?” asked Injin Charley curiously. 

“ I got to get to Detroit before they do; that’s all.” 

Instantly the Indian became all action. 

“ You come,” he ordered, and set out at a rapid pace 
for camp. 

There, with incredible deftness, he packed together 
about twelve pounds of the jerked venison and a pair 
of blankets, thrust Thorpe’s waterproof match safe in 
his pocket, and turned eagerly to the young man. 

“ You come,” he repeated. 

Thorpe hastily unearthed his “ descriptions ” and 
wrapped them up. The Indian, in silence, rearranged 
the displaced articles in such a manner as to relieve 
the camp of its abandoned air. 

It was nearly sundown. Without a word the two 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 151 

men struck off into the forest, the Indian in the lead. 
Their course was southeast, but Thorpe asked no ques- 
tions. He followed blindly. Soon he found that if he 
did even that adequately, he would have little atten- 
tion left for anything else. The Indian walked with 
long, swift strides, his knees always slightly bent, even 
at the finish of the step, his back hollowed, his 
shoulders and head thrust forward. His gait had a 
queer sag in it, up and down in a long curve from one 
rise to the other. After a time Thorpe became fasci- 
nated in watching before him this easy, untiring lope, 
hour after hour, without the variation of a second's 
fraction in speed nor an inch in length. It was as 
though the Indian were made of steel springs. He 
never appeared to hurry; but neither did he ever 
rest. 

At first Thorpe followed him with comparative ease, 
but at the end of three hours he was compelled to put 
forth decided efforts to keep pace. His walking was 
no longer mechanical, but conscious. When it be- 
comes so, a man soon tires. Thorpe resented the in- 
equalities, the stones, the roots, the patches of soft 
ground which lay in his way. He felt dully that they 
were not fair. He could negotiate the distance; but 
anything else was a gratuitous insult. 

Then suddenly he gained his second wind. He felt 
better and stronger and moved freer. For second wind 
is only to a very small degree a question of the breath- 
ing power. It is rather the response of the vital forces 
to a will that refuses to heed their first grumbling pro- 
tests. Like dogs by the fire they do their utmost to 
convince their master that the limit of freshness is 
reached; but at last, under the whip, spring to their 
work. 

At midnight Injin Charley called a halt. He spread 
his blanket, leaned on one elbow long enough to eat 
a strip of dried meat, and fell asleep. Thorpe imitated 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


152 

his example. Three hours later the Indian roused his 
companion, and the two set out again. 

Thorpe had walked a leisurely ten days through the 
woods far to the north. In that journey he had en- 
countered many difficulties. Sometimes he had been 
tangled for hours at a time in a dense and almost 
impenetrable thicket. Again he had spent a half day 
in crossing a treacherous swamp. Or there had inter- 
posed in his trail abattises of down timber a quarter 
of a mile wide over which it had been necessary to 
pick a precarious way eight or ten feet from the 
ground. 

This journey was in comparison easy. Most of the 
time the travellers walked along high beech ridges or 
through the hardwood forests. Occasionally they 
were forced to pass into the lowlands, but always little 
saving spits of highland reaching out towards each 
other abridged the necessary wallowing. Twice they 
swam rivers. 

At first Thorpe thought this was because the country 
was more open; but as he gave better attention to their 
route, he learned to ascribe it entirely to the skill of 
his companion. The Indian seemed by a species of 
instinct to select the most practicable routes. He 
seemed to know how the land ought to lie, so that he 
was never deceived by appearances into entering a 
cal de sac. His beech ridges always led to other beech 
ridges; his hardwood never petered out into the terrible 
black swamps. Sometimes Thorpe became sensible 
that they had commenced a long detour; but it was 
never an abrupt detour, unforeseen and blind. 

From three o’clock until eight they walked continu- 
ally without a pause, without an instant’s breathing 
spell. Then they rested a half hour, ate a little venison, 
and smoked a pipe. 

An hour after noon they repeated the rest. Thorpe 
rose with a certain physical reluctance. The Indian 



Then forward again by the intermittent light 
of the moon and stars* 
































































V 



















































4 















































THE BLAZED TRAIL 153 

seemed as fresh — or as tired — as when he started. 
At sunset they took an hour. Then forward again by 
the dim intermittent light of the moon and stars 
through the ghostly haunted forest, until Thorpe 
thought he would drop with weariness, and was men- 
tally incapable of contemplating more than a hundred 
steps in advance. 

“ When I get to that square patch of light, I’ll quit,” 
he would say to himself, and struggle painfully the re- 
quired twenty rods. 

“ No, I won’t quit here,” he would continue, “ I’ll 
make it that birch. Then I’ll lie down and die.” 

And so on. To the actual physical exhaustion of 
Thorpe’s muscles was added that immense mental wear- 
iness which uncertainty of the time and distance inflicts 
on a man. The journey might last a week, for all he 
knew. In the presence of an emergency these men of 
action had actually not exchanged a dozen words. The 
Indian led; Thorpe followed. 

When the halt was called, Thorpe fell into his 
blanket too weary even to eat. Next morning sharp, 
shooting pains, like the stabs of swords, ran through 
his groin. 

“ You come,” repeated the Indian, stolid as ever. 

When the sun was an hour high the travellers sud- 
denly ran into a trail, which as suddenly dived into a 
spruce thicket. On the other side of it Thorpe unex- 
pectedly found himself in an extensive clearing, dotted 
with the blackened stumps of pines. Athwart the dis- 
tance he could perceive the wide blue horizon of Lake 
Michigan. He had crossed the Upper Peninsula on 
foot ! 

“ Boat come by to-day,” said Injin Charley, indicat- 
ing the tall stacks of a mill. “ Him no stop. You mak’ 
him stop take you with him. You get train Mackinaw 
City to-night. Dose men, dey on dat train.” 

Thorpe calculated rapidly. The enemy would re- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


154 

quire, even with their teams, a day to cover the thirty 
miles to the fishing village of Munising, whence the 
stage ran each morning to Seney, the present terminal 
of the South Shore Railroad. He, Thorpe, on foot 
and three hours behind, could never have caught the 
stage. But from Seney only one train a day was de- 
spatched to connect at Mackinaw City with the Michi- 
gan Central, and on that one train, due to leave this 
very morning, the up-river man was just about pulling 
out. He would arrive at Mackinaw City at four o’clock 
of the afternoon, where he would be forced to wait until 
eight in the evening. By catching a boat at the mill 
to which Injin Charley had led him, Thorpe could 
still make the same train. Thus the start in the race 
for Detroit’s Land Office would be fair. 

“ All right/’ he cried, all his energy returning to 
him. “ Here goes! We’ll beat him out yet!” 

“You come back?” inquired the Indian, peering 
with a certain anxiety into his companion’s eyes. 

“ Come back! ” cried Thorpe. “ You bet your hat! ” 

“ I wait,” replied the Indian, and was gone. 

“ Oh, Charley! ” shouted Thorpe in surprise. 
“ Come on and get a square meal, anyway.” 

But the Indian was already on his way back to the 
distant Ossawinamakee. 

Thorpe hesitated in two minds whether to follow 
and attempt further persuasion, for he felt keenly 
the interest the other had displayed. Then he saw, 
over the headland to the east, a dense trail of black 
smoke. He set off on a stumbling run towards the 
mill. 


Chapter XXI 


JT "JT E arrived out of breath in a typical little mil* 

§ " w town consisting of the usual unpainted houses* 
JL JL the saloons, mill, office, and general store. To 
the latter he addressed himself for information. 

The proprietor, still sleepy, was mopping out the 
place. 

“ Does that boat stop here? ” shouted Thorpe across 
the suds. 

“ Sometimes/’ replied the man somnolently. 

“ Not always?” 

“ Only when there’s freight for her.” 

“ Doesn’t she stop for passengers?” 

“ Nope.” 

“ How does she know when there’s freight? ” 

“ Oh, they signal her from the mill — ” but Thorpe 
was gone. 

At the mill Thorpe dove for the engine room. He 
knew that elsewhere the clang of machinery and the 
hurry of business would leave scant attention for him. 
And besides, from the engine room the signals would 
be given. He found, as is often the case in north- 
country sawmills, a Scotchman in charge. 

“ Does the boat stop here this morning? ” he in- 
quired. 

“ Weel,” replied the engineer with fearful delibera- 
tion, “ I canna say. But I hae received na orders to 
that effect.” 

“ Can’t you whistle her in for me? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ I canna,” answered the engineer, promptly enough 
this time. 


i55 


156 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

“Why not?” 

“Ye’re na what a body might call freight.” 

“ No other way out of it? ” 

“ Na.” 

Thorpe was seized with an idea. 

“ Here! ” he cried. “ See that boulder over there? 
I want to ship that to Mackinaw City by freight on this 
boat.” 

The Scotchman’s eyes twinkled appreciatively. 

“I’m dootin’ ye hae th’ freight-bill from the office,” 
he objected simply. 

“ See here,” replied Thorpe, “ I’ve just got to get 
that boat. It’s worth twenty dollars to me, and I’ll 
square it with the captain. There’s your twenty.” 

The Scotchman deliberated, looking aslant at the 
ground and thoughtfully oiling a cylinder with a greasy 
rag. 

“ It’ll na be a matter of life and death?” he asked 
hopefully. “ She aye stops for life and death.” 

“ No,” replied Thorpe reluctantly. Then with an 
explosion, “ Yes, by God, it is! If I don’t make that 
boat, I’ll kill you .” 

The Scotchman chuckled and pocketed the money. 
“ I’m dootin’ that’s in order,” he replied. “ I’ll no be 
party to any such proceedin’s. I’m goin’ noo for a fresh 
pail of watter,” he remarked, pausing at the door, “ but 
as a wee item of information: yander’s th’ wheestle 
rope; and a mon wheestles one short and one long for 
th’ boat.” 

He disappeared. Thorpe seized the cord and gave 
the signal. Then he ran hastily to the end of the long 
lumber docks, and peered with great eagerness in the 
direction of the black smoke. 

The steamer was as yet concealed behind a low spit 
of land which ran out from the west to form one side 
of the harbor. In a moment, however, her bows ap- 
peared, headed directly down towards the Straits of 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 157 

Mackinaw. When opposite the little bay Thorpe con- 
fidently looked to see her turn in, but to his consterna- 
tion she held her course. He began to doubt whether 
his signal had been heard. Fresh black smoke poured 
from the funnel; the craft seemed to gather speed as 
she approached the eastern point. Thorpe saw his 
hopes sailing away. Fie wanted to stand up absurdly 
and wave his arms to attract attention at that impos- 
sible distance. He wanted to sink to the planks in 
apathy. Finally he sat down, and with dull eyes 
watched the distance widen between himself and his 
aims. 

And then with a grand free sweep she turned and 
headed directly for him. 

Other men might have wept or shouted. Thorpe 
merely became himself, imperturbable, commanding, 
apparently cold. He negotiated briefly with the captain, 
paid twenty dollars more for speed and the privilege of 
landing at Mackinaw City. Then he slept for eight 
hours on end and was awakened in time to drop into a 
small boat which deposited him on the broad sand 
beach of the lower peninsula. 


Chapter XXII 


r HE train was just leisurely making up for de- 
parture. Thorpe, dressed as he was in old 
“ pepper and salt ” garments patched with 
buckskin, his hat a flopping travesty on headgear, his 
moccasins, worn and dirty, his face bearded and 
bronzed, tried as much as possible to avoid attention. 
He sent an instant telegram to Wallace Carpenter con- 
ceived as follows: 

“ Wire thirty thousand my order care Land Office, 
Detroit, before nine o’clock to-morrow morning. Do 
it if you have to rustle all night. Important.” 

Then he took a seat in the baggage car on a pile of 
boxes and philosophically waited for the train to start. 
He knew that sooner or later the man, provided he 
were on the train, would stroll through the car, and he 
wanted to be out of the way. The baggage man proved 
friendly, so Thorpe chatted with him until after bed- 
time. Then he entered the smoking car and waited 
patiently for morning. 

So far the affair had gone very well. It had depended 
on personal exertions, and he had made it go. Now 
he was forced to rely on outward circumstances. He 
argued that the up-river man would have first to make 
his financial arrangements before he could buy in the 
land, and this would give the landlooker a chance to 
get in ahead at the office. There would probably be 
no difficulty about that. The man suspected nothing. 
But Thorpe had to confess himself fearfully uneasy 
about his own financial arrangements. That was the 
rub. Wallace Carpenter had been sincere enough in 
158 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


159 

his informal striking of partnership, but had he re- 
tained his enthusiasm? Had second thought convicted 
him of folly? Had conservative business friends dis- 
suaded him? Had the glow faded in the reality of his 
accustomed life? And even if his good-will remained 
unimpaired, would he be able, at such short notice, to 
raise so large a sum ? Would he realize from Thorpe’s 
telegram the absolute necessity of haste? 

At the last thought, Thorpe decided to send a second 
message from the next station. He did so. It read: 
“ Another buyer of timber on same train with me. 
Must have money at nine o’clock or lose land.” He 
paid day rates on it to insure immediate delivery. 
Suppose the boy should be away from home! 

Everything depended on Wallace Carpenter; and 
Thorpe could not but confess the chance slender. One 
other thought made the night seem long. Thorpe had 
but thirty dollars left. 

Morning came at last, and the train drew in and 
stopped. Thorpe, being in the smoking car, dropped 
off first and stationed himself near the exit where he 
could look over the passengers without being- seen. 
They filed past. Two only he could accord the role 
of master lumbermen — all the rest were plainly 
drummers or hayseeds. And in these two Thorpe rec- 
ognized Daly and Morrison themselves. They passed 
within ten feet of him, talking earnestly together. At 
the curb they hailed a cab and drove away. Thorpe 
with satisfaction heard them call the name of a hotel. 

It was still two hours before the Land Office would 
be open. Thorpe ate breakfast at the depot and wan- 
dered slowly up Jefferson Avenue to Woodward, a 
strange piece of our country’s medievalism in modern 
surroundings. He was so occupied with his own 
thoughts that for some time he remained unconscious 
of the attention he was attracting. Then, with a start, 
he felt that everyone was staring at him. The hour was 


160 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

early, so that few besides the working classes were 
abroad, but he passed one lady driving leisurely to an 
early train whose frank scrutiny brought him to him- 
self. He became conscious that his broad hat was 
weather-soiled and limp, that his flannel shirt was 
faded, that his “ pepper and salt ” trousers were 
patched, that moccasins must seem as anachronistic as 
chain mail. It abashed him. He could not know that 
it was all wild and picturesque, that his straight and 
muscular figure moved with a grace quite its own and 
the woods’, that the bronze of his skin contrasted 
splendidly with the clearness of his eye, that his whole 
bearing expressed the serene power that comes only 
from the confidence of battle. The woman in the car- 
riage saw it, however. 

“ He is magnificent! ” she cried. “ I thought such 
men had died with Cooper! ” 

Thorpe whirled sharp on his heel and returned at 
once to a boarding-house off Fort Street, where he had 
“ outfitted ” three months before. There he reclaimed 
his valise, shaved, clothed himself in linen and cheviot 
once more, and sauntered slowly over to the Land 
Office to await its opening. 


Chapter XXIII 


yjT nine o’clock neither of the partners had 
appeared. Thorpe entered the office and ap- 
^ J. proached the desk. 

“ Is there a telegram here for Harry Thorpe?” he 
inquired. 

The clerk to whom he addressed himself merely 
motioned with his head toward a young fellow behind 
the railing in a corner. The latter, without awaiting 
the question, shifted comfortably and replied: 

“ No.” 


At the same instant steps were heard in the corridor, 
the door opened, and Mr. Morrison appeared on the 
sill. Then Thorpe showed the stuff of which he was 
made. 

“ Is this the desk for buying Government lands? ” 
he asked hurriedly. 

“ Yes,” replied the clerk.” 

“ I have some descriptions I wish to buy in.” 

“Very well,” replied the clerk, “what township?” 

Thorpe detailed the figures, which he knew by heart, 
the clerk took from a cabinet the three books contain- 
ing them, and spread them out on the counter. At this 
moment the bland voice of Mr. Morrison made itself 
heard at Thorpe’s elbow. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Smithers,” it said with the 
• deliberation of the consciously great man. “ I have 
a few descriptions I would like to buy in the northern 
peninsula.” 

“ Good morning, Mr. Morrison. Archie there will 
attend to you. Archie, see what Mr. Morrison wishes.” 


161 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


162 

The lumberman and the other clerk consulted in a 
low voice, after which the official turned to fumble 
among the records. Not finding what he wanted, he 
approached Smithers. A whispered consultation en- 
sued between these two. Then Smithers called: 

“ Take a seat, Mr. Morrison. This gentleman is 
looking over these townships, and will have finished 
in a few minutes.” 

Morrison’s eye suddenly became uneasy. 

“ I am somewhat busy this morning,” he objected 
with a shade of command in his voice. 

“ If this gentleman ? ” suggested the clerk deli- 

cately 

“ I am sorry,” put in Thorpe with brevity, “ my 
time, too, is valuable.” 

Morrison looked at him sharply. 

“ My deal is a big one,” he snapped. “ I can prob- 
ablv arrange with this gentleman to let him have his 
farm.” 

“ I claim precedence,” replied Thorpe calmly. 

“ Well,” said Morrison swift as light, “I’ll tell you, 
Smithers. I’ll leave my list of descriptions and a check 
with you. Give me a receipt, and mark my lands off 
after you’ve finished with this gentleman.” 

Now Government and State lands are the property 
of the man who pays for them. Although the clerk’s 
receipt might not give Morrison a valid claim; never- 
theless it would afford basis for a lawsuit. Thorpe 
saw the trap, and interposed. 

“ Hold on,” he interrupted, “ I claim precedence. 
You can give no receipt for any land in these town- 
ships until after my business is transacted. I have 
reason to believe that this gentleman and myself are 
both after the same descriptions.” 

“What! ” shouted Morrison, assuming surprise. 

“ You will have to await your turn, Mr. Morrison / 1 
said the clerk, virtuous before so many witnesses. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 163 

The business man was in a white rage of excite- 
ment. 

“ I insist on my application being filed at once! ” he 
cried waving his check. “ I have the money right here 
to pay for every acre of it ; and if I know the law, the 
first man to pay takes the land.” 

He slapped the check down on the rail, and hit it 
a number of times with the flat of his hand. Thorpe 
turned and faced him with a steel look in his level 
eyes. 

“ Mr. Morrison,” he said, “ you are quite right. The 
first man who pays gets the land ; but I have won 
the first chance to pay. You will kindly step one 
side until I finish my business with Mr. Smithers 
here.” 

“ I suppose you have the amount actually with you,” 
said the clerk, quite respectfully, “ because if you have 
not, Mr. Morrison’s claim will take precedence.” ^ 

“ I would hardly have any business in a land office, 
if I did not know that,” replied Thorpe, and began his 
dictation of the description as calmly as though his 
inside pocket contained the required amount in bank 
bills. 

Thorpe’s hopes had sunk to zero. After all, looking 
at the matter dispassionately, why should he expect 
Carpenter to trust him, a stranger, with so large a 
sum? It had been madness. Only the blind confi- 
dence of the fighting man led him further into the 
struggle. Another would have given up, would have 
stepped aside from the path of this bona-fide purchaser 
with the money in his hand. 

But Thorpe was of the kind that hangs on until the 
last possible second, not so much in the expectation of 
winning, as in sheer reluctance to yield. Such men 
shoot their last cartridge before surrendering, swim 
the last ounce of strength from their arms before 
throwing them up to sink, search coolly until the latest 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


164 

moment for a way from the burning building,. — and 
sometimes come face to face with miracles. 

Thorpe’s descriptions were contained in the battered 
little note-book he had carried with him in the woods. 
For each piece of land first there came the township 
described by latitude and east-and-west range. After 
this generic description followed another figure rep- 
resenting the section of that particular district. So 
49 — 1 7 W — 8, meant section 8, of the township on 
range 49 north, 17 west. If Thorpe wished to pur- 
chase the whole section, that description would suffice. 
On the other hand, if he wished to buy only one forty, 
he described its position in the quarter-section. Thus 
SW — NW 49 — 17 — 8, meant the southwest forty 
of the northwest quarter of section 8 in the township 
already described. 

The clerk marked across each square of his map 
as Thorpe read them, the date and the purchaser’s 
name. 

In his note-book Thorpe had, of course, entered the 
briefest description possible. Now, in dictating to the 
clerk, he conceived the idea of specifying each sub- 
division. This gained some time. Instead of saying 
simply, “ Northwest quarter of section 8,” he made of 
it four separate descriptions, as follows: — Northwest 
quarter of northwest quarter; northeast of northwest 
quarter; southwest of northwest quarter; and south- 
east of northwest quarter. 

He was not so foolish as to read the descriptions in 
succession, but so scattered them that the clerk, put- 
ting down the figures mechanically, had no idea of the 
amount of unnecessary work he was doing. The 
minute hands of the clock dragged around. Thorpe 
droned down the long column. The clerk scratched 
industriously, repeating in a half voice each descrip- 
tion as it was transcribed. 

At length the task was finished. It became neces- 



u You will kindly step one side until I finish 
my business with Mr. Smithers here.” 






. 


























































• 
























































































































































































THE BLAZED TRAIL 


l6 5 

sary to type duplicate lists of the descriptions. While 
the somnolent youth finished this task, Thorpe listened 
for the messenger boy on the stairs. 

A faint slam was heard outside the rickety old build- 
ing. Hasty steps sounded along the corridor. The 
landlooker merely stopped the drumming of his fingers 
on the broad arm of the chair. The door flew open, 
and Wallace Carpenter walked quickly to him. 

Thorpe’s face lighted up as he rose to greet his part- 
ner. The boy had not forgotten their compact after 
all. 

“ Then it’s all right? ” queried the latter breath- 
lessly. 

“ Sure,” answered Thorpe heartily, “ got ’em in 
good shape.” 

At the same time he was drawing the youth beyond 
the vigilant watchfulness of Mr. Morrison. 

“ You’re just in time,” he said in an undertone. 
“ Never had so close a squeak. I suppose you have 
cash or a certified check: that’s all they’ll take here.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Carpenter blankly. 

“ Haven’t you that money? ” returned Thorpe quick 
as a hawk. 

“ For Heaven’s sake, isn’t it here? ” cried Wallace in 
consternation. “ I wired Duncan, my banker, here 
last night, and received a reply from him. He answered 
that he’d see to it. Haven’t you seen him? ” < 

“ No,” repeated Thorpe in his turn. 

“ What can we do? ” 

“ Can you get vour check certified here near at 
hand?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, go do it. And get a move on you. You 
have precisely until that boy there finishes clicking that 
machine. Not a second longer.” 

“ Can’t you get them to wait a few minutes?” 

“ Wallace,” said Thorpe, “ do you see that white- 


i66 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


whiskered old lynx in the corner? That’s Morrison, 
the man who wants to get our land. If I fail to plank 
down the cash the very instant it is demanded, he gets 
his chance. And he’ll take it. Now, go. Don’t hurry 
until you get beyond the door: then fly! ” 

Thorpe sat down again in his broad-armed chair and 
resumed his drumming. The nearest bank was six 
blocks away. He counted over in his mind the steps 
of Carpenter’s progress; now to the door, now in the 
next block, now so far beyond. He had just escorted 
him to the door of the bank, when the clerk’s voice 
broke in on him. 

“ Now,” Smithers was saying, “ I’ll give you a re- 
ceipt for the amount, and later will send to your address 
the title deeds of the descriptions.” 

Carpenter had yet to find the proper official, to 
identify himself, to certify the check, and to return. 
It was hopeless. Thorpe dropped his hands in sur- 
render. 

Then he saw the boy lay the two typed lists before 
his principal, and dimly he perceived that the youth, 
shamefacedly, was holding something bulky toward 
himself. 

“Wh — what is it?” he stammered, drawing his 
hand back as though from a red-hot iron. 

“ You asked me for a telegram,” said the boy 
stubbornly, as though trying to excuse himself, 
“ and I didn’t just catch the name, anyway. When 
I saw it on those lists I had to copy, I thought of 
this here.” 

“ Where’d you get it?” asked Thorpe breath- 
lessly. 

“ A fellow came here early and left it for you while 
I was sweeping out,” explained the boy. “ Said he had 
to catch a train. It’s yours all right, ain’t it? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” replied Thorpe. 

He took the envelope and walked uncertainly to the 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 167 

tall window. He looked out at the chimneys. After 
a moment he tore open the envelope. 

“ I hope there’s no bad news, sir? ” said the clerk, 
startled at the paleness of the face Thorpe turned to 
the desk. 

“ No,” replied the landlooker. “ Give me a receipt. 
There’s a certified check for your money!” 


Chapter XXIV 


OW that the strain was over, Thorpe expe- 



rienced a great weariness. The long journey 


l \ through the forest, his sleepless night on the 
train, the mental alertness of playing the game with 
shrewd foes, — all these stretched his fibers out one by 
one and left them limp. He accepted stupidly the 
clerk’s congratulations on his success, left the name of 
the little hotel off Fort Street as the address to which 
to send the deeds, and dragged himself off with in- 
finite fatigue to his bed-room. There he fell at once 
into profound unconsciousness. 

He was awakened late in the afternoon by the sen- 
sation of a strong pair of young arms around his 
shoulders, and the sound of Wallace Carpenter’s fresh 
voice crying in his ears: 

“ Wake up, wake up! you Indian! You’ve been 
asleep all day, and I’ve been waiting here all that time. 
I want to hear about it. Wake up, I say! ” 

Thorpe rolled to a sitting posture on the edge of 
the bed, and smiled uncertainly. Then as the sleep 
drained from his brain, he reached out his hand. 

“ You bet we did ’em, Wallace,” said he, “ but it 
looked like a hard proposition for a while.” 

“ How was it? Tell me about it! ” insisted the boy 
eagerly. “ You don’t know how impatient I’ve been. 
The clerk at the Land Office merely told me it was 
all right. How did you fix it? ” 

While Thorpe washed and shaved and leisurely 
freshened himself, he detailed his experiences of the 
last week. 

“ And,” he concluded gravely, “ there’s only one 


168 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


169 

man I know or ever heard of to whom I would have 
considered it worth while even to think of sending that 
telegram, and you are he. Somehow I knew you’d 
come to the scratch.” 

“ It’s the most exciting thing I ever heard of,” 
sighed Wallace drawing a full breath, “ and I wasn’t 
in it! It’s the sort of thing I long for. If I’d only 
waited another two weeks before coming down ! ” 

“ In that case we couldn’t have gotten hold of the 
money, remember,” smiled Thorpe. 

“ That’s so.” Wallace brightened. “ I did count, 
didn’t I?” 

“ I thought so about ten o’clock this morning,” 
Thorpe replied. 

“ Suppose you hadn’t stumbled on their camp; sup- 
pose Injin Charley hadn’t seen them go up-river; 
suppose you hadn’t struck that little mill town just at 
the time you did!” marvelled Wallace. 

“ That’s always the way,” philosophized Thorpe in 
reply. “ It’s the old story of ‘ if the horse-shoe nail 
hadn’t been lost,’ you know. But we got there; and 
that’s the important thing.” 

“ We did! ” cried the boy, his enthusiasm rekindling, 
“ and to-night we’ll celebrate with the best dinner we 
can buy in town! ” 

Thorpe was tempted, but remembered the thirty 
dollars in his pocket, and looked doubtful. 

Carpenter possessed, as part of his volatile enthusi- 
astic temperament, keen intuitions. 

“Don’t refuse!” he begged. “I’ve set my heart 
on giving my senior partner a dinner. Surely you 
won’t refuse to be my guest here, as I was yours in 
the woods! ” 

“ Wallace,” said Thorpe, “ I’ll go you. I’d like to 
dine with you; but moreover, I’ll confess, I should like 
to eat a good dinner again. It’s been more than a year 
since I’ve seen a salad, or heard of after-dinner coffee.” 


7 o 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ Come on then,” cried Wallace. 

Together they sauntered through the lengthening 
shadows to a certain small restaurant near Woodward 
Avenue, then much in vogue among Detroit’s epi- 
cures. It contained only a half dozen tables, but was 
spotlessly clean, and its cuisine was unrivalled. A large 
fireplace near the center of the room robbed it of half 
its restaurant air ; and a thick carpet on the floor took 
the rest. The walls were decorated in dark colors 
after the German style. Several easy chairs grouped 
before the fireplace, and a light wicker table heaped 
with magazines and papers invited the guests to lounge 
while their orders were being prepared. 

Thorpe was not in the least Sybaritic in his tastes, 
but he could not stifle a sigh of satisfaction at sinking 
so naturally into the unobtrusive little comforts which 
the ornamental life offers to its votaries. They rose 
up around him and pillowed him, and were grateful to 
the tired fibers of his being. His remoter past had 
enjoyed these things as a matter of course. They had 
framed the background to his daily habit. Now that 
the background had again slid into place on noiseless 
grooves, Thorpe for the first time became conscious 
that his strenuous life had indeed been in the open 
air, and that the winds of earnest endeavor, while 
bracing, had chilled. Wallace Carpenter, with the 
poet’s insight and sympathy, saw and understood this 
feeling. 

“ I want you to order this dinner,” said he, handing 
over to Thorpe the card which an impossibly correct 
waiter presented him. “ And I want it a good one. 
I want you to begin at the beginning and skip nothing. 
Pretend you are ordering just the dinner you would 
like to offer your sister,” he suggested on a sudden in- 
spiration. “ I assure you I’ll try to be just as critical 
and exigent as she would be.” 

Thorpe took up the card dreamily. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


171 

“ There are no oysters and clams now,” said he, “ so 
we’ll pass right on to the soup. It seems to me a dese- 
cration to pretend to replace them. We’ll have a 
bisque ,” he told the waiter, “ rich and creamy. Then 
planked whitefish, and have them just a light crisp 
brown. You can bring some celery, too, if you have 
it fresh and good. And for entree tell your cook to 
make some macaroni an gratin, but the inside must be 
soft and very creamy, and the outside very crisp. 
I know it’s a queer dish for a formal dinner like ours,” 
he addressed Wallace with a little laugh, “ but it’s 
very, very good. We’ll have roast beef, rare and juicy; 
— if you bring it any way but a cooked red, I’ll send it 
back; — and potatoes roasted with the meat, and brown 
gravy. Then the breast of chicken with the salad, in 
the French fashion. And I’ll make the dressing. 
We’ll have an ice and some fruit for dessert. Black 
coffee.” 

“ Yes, sir,” replied the waiter, his pencil poised. 
“And the wines?” 

Thorpe ruminated sleepily. 

“ A rich red Burgundy,” he decided, “ for all the 
dinner. If your cellar contains a very good smooth 
Beaune, we’ll have that.” 

“ Yes, sir,” answered the waiter, and departed. 

Thorpe sat and gazed moodily into the wood fire. 
Wallace respected his silence. It was yet too early for 
the fashionable world, so the two friends had the place 
to themselves. Gradually the twilight fell; strange 
shadows leaped and died on the wall. A boy dressed 
all in white turned on the lights. By and by the waiter 
announced that their repast awaited them. 

Thorpe ate, his eyes half closed, in somnolent satis- 
faction. Occasionally he smiled contentedly across at 
Wallace, who smiled in response. After the coffee he 
had the waiter bring cigars. They went back between 
the tables to a little upholstered smoking room, where 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


l 7 2 

they sank into the depths of leather chairs, and blew 
the gray clouds of smoke towards the ceiling. About 
nine o’clock Thorpe spoke the first word. 

“ I’m stupid this evening, I’m afraid,” said he, shak- 
ing himself. “ Don’t think on that account I am not 
enjoying your dinner. I believe,” he asserted earnestly, 
“ that I never had such an altogether comfortable, 
happy evening before in my life.” 

“ I know,” replied Wallace sympathetically. 

“ It seems just now,” went on Thorpe, sinking more 
luxuriously into his armchair, “ that this alone is liv- 
ing — to exist in an environment exquisitely toned; 
to eat, to drink, to smoke the best, not like a gormand, 
but delicately as an artist would. It is the flower of 
our civilization.” 

Wallace remembered the turmoil of the wilderness 
brook; the little birch knoll, yellow in the evening 
glow; the mellow voice of the summer night crooning 
through the pines. But he had the rare tact to say 
nothing. 

“ Did it ever occur to you that what you needed, 
when sort of tired out this way,” he said abruptly after 
a moment, “ is a woman to understand and sympathize ? 
Wouldn’t it have made this evening perfect to have 
seen opposite you a being whom you loved, who under- 
stood your moments of weariness, as well as your 
moments of strength?” 

“ No,” replied Thorpe, stretching his arms over his 
head, “ a woman would have talked. It takes a friend 
and a man, to know when to keep silent for three 
straight hours.” 

Th<? waiter brought the bill on a tray, and Carpenter 
paid it. 

“ Wallace,” said Thorpe suddenly after a long in- 
terval, “ we’ll borrow enough by mortgaging our land 
to supply the working expenses. I suppose capital 
will have to investigate, and that’ll take time; but I can 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


m 


begin to pick up a crew and make arrangements for 
transportation and supplies. You can let me have a 
thousand dollars on the new Company’s note for 
initial expenses. We’ll draw up articles of partnership 
to-morrow.” 


Chapter XXV 


EXT day the articles of partnership were 
drawn; and Carpenter gave his note for the 



l \ necessary expenses. Then in answer to a pen- 
cilled card which Mr. Morrison had evidently left at 
Thorpe’s hotel in person, both young men called at the 
lumberman’s place of business. They were ushered 
immediately into the private office. 

Mr. Morrison was a smart little man with an ingra- 
tiating manner and a fishy eye. He greeted Thorpe 
with marked geniality. 

“ My opponent of yesterday! ” he cried jocularly. 
“ Sit down, Mr. Thorpe ! Although you did me out of 
some land I had made every preparation to purchase, 
I can’t but admire your grit and resourcefulness. How 
did you get here ahead of us? ” 

“ I walked across the upper peninsula, and caught 
a boat,” replied Thorpe briefly. 

“ Indeed, indeed! ” replied Mr. Morrison, placing the 
tips of his fingers together. “ Extraordinary! Well, 
Mr. Thorpe, you overreached us nicely; and I suppose 
we must pay for our carelessness. We must have that 
pine, even though we pay stumpage on it. Now what 
would you consider a fair price for it?” 

“ It is not for sale,” answered Thorpe. 

“ We’ll waive all that. Of course it is to your in- 
terest to make difficulties and run the price up as high 
as you can. But my time is somewhat occupied just 
at present, so I would be very glad to hear your top 
price — we will come to an agreement afterwards.” 

“ You do not understand me, Mr. Morrison. I told 
you the pine is not for sale, and I mean it.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


l 75 

“ But surely — What did you buy it for, then?” 
cried Mr. Morrison, with evidences of a growing ex- 
citement. 

“ We intend to manufacture it.” 

Mr. Morrison’s fishy eyes nearly popped out of his 
head. He controlled himself with an effort. 

“ Mr. Thorpe,” said he, “ let us try to be reasonable. 
Our case stands this way. We have gone to a great 
deal of expense on the Ossawinamakee in expectation 
of undertaking very extensive operations there. To 
that end we have cleared the stream, built three dams, 
and have laid the foundations of a harbor and boom. 
This has been very expensive. Now your purchase in- 
cludes most of what we had meant to log. You have, 
roughly speaking, about three hundred millions in 
your holding, in addition to which there are several 
millions scattering near it, which would pay nobody 
but yourself to get in. Our holdings are further up 
stream, and comprise only about the equal of yours.” 

“ Three hundred millions are not to be sneezed at,” 
replied Thorpe. 

“ Certainly not,” agreed Morrison, suavely, gaining 
confidence from the sound of his own voice. “ Not in 
this country. But you must remember that a man goes 
into the northern peninsula only because he can get 
something better there than here. When the firm of 
Morrison & Daly establishes itself now, it must be for 
the last time. We want enough timber to do us for 
the rest of the time we are in business.” 

“ In that case, you will have to hunt up another 
locality,” replied Thorpe calmly. 

Morrison’s eyes flashed. But he retained his appear- 
ance of geniality, and appealed to Wallace Carpenter. 

“ Then you will retain the advantage of our dams 
and improvements,” said he. “ Is that fair? ” 

“ No, not on the face of it,” admitted Thorpe. “ But 
you did your work in a navigable stream for private 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


176 

purposes, without the consent of the Board of Control. 
Your presence on the river is illegal. You should have 
taken out a charter as an Improvement Company. 
Then, as long as you ’tended to business and kept the 
concern in repair, we’d have paid you a toll per thou- 
sand feet. As soon as you let it slide, however, the 
works would revert to the State. I won’t hinder your 
doing that yet; although I might. Take out your char- 
ter and fix your rate of toll.” 

“ In other words, you force us to stay there and run 
a little two-by-four Improvement Company for your 
benefit, or else lose the value of our improvements? ” 

“ Suit yourself,” answered Thorpe carelessly. “You 
can always log your present holdings.” 

“ Very well,” cried Morrison, so suddenly in a pas- 
sion that Wallace started back. “It’s war! And let 
me tell you this, young man; you’re a new concern and 
we’re an old one. We’ll crush you like that!” He 
crisped an envelope vindictively, and threw it in the 
waste-basket. 

“ Crush ahead,” replied Thorpe with great good 
humor. “ Good-day, Mr. Morrison,” and the two went 
out. 

Wallace was sputtering and trembling with nervous 
excitement. His was one of those temperaments which 
require action to relieve the stress of a stormy inter- 
view. He was brave enough, but he would always 
tremble in the presence of danger until the moment for 
striking arrived. He wanted to do something at once. 

“ Hadn’t we better see a lawyer? ” he asked. 
“ Oughtn’t we to look out that they don’t take some 
of our pine? Oughtn’t we ” 

“ You just leave all that to me,” replied Thorpe. 
“ The first thing we want to do is to rustle some 
money.” 

“ And you can leave that to me” echoed Wallace. 
“ I know a little of such things, and I have business 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


l 77 

connections who know more. You just get the camp 
running.” 

“ I’ll start for Bay City to-night,” submitted Thorpe. 
“ There ought to be a good lot of lumber-jacks lying 
around idle at this time of year; and it’s a good place 
to outfit from because we can probably get freight 
rates direct by boat. We’ll be a little late in starting, 
but we’ll get in some logs this winter, anyway.” 





















THE 

BLAZED 

TRAIL 

? 

Part III 

The Blazing of the Trail 



I" $ 

r 


4 


Chapter XXVI 

A LUMBERING town after the drive is a fear- 

X-M ful thing. Men just off the river draw a deep 
J* breath, and plunge into the wildest reactionary 
dissipation. In droves they invade the cities, — wild, 
picturesque, lawless. As long as the money lasts, they 
blow it in. 

“ Hot money! ” is the cry. “ She's burnt holes in all 
my pockets already! ” 

The saloons are full, the gambling houses overflow, 
all the places of amusement or crime run full blast. 
A chip rests lightly on everyone’s shoulder. Fights 
are as common as raspberries in August. Often one 
of these formidable men, his muscles toughened and 
quickened by the active, strenuous river work, will set 
out to “ take the town apart.” For a time he leaves 
rack and ruin, black eyes and broken teeth behind him, 
until he meets a more redoubtable “ knocker ” and is 
pounded and kicked into unconsciousness. Organized 
gangs go from house to house forcing the peaceful in- 
mates to drink from their bottles. Others take posses- 
sion of certain sections of the street and resist a Vou- 
trance the attempts of others to pass. Inoffensive 
citizens are stood on their heads, or shaken upside 
down until the contents of their pockets rattle on the 
street. Parenthetically, these contents are invariably 
returned to their owners. The riverman’s object is fun, 
not robbery. 

And if rip-roaring, swashbuckling, drunken glory is 
what he is after, he gets it. The only trouble is, that a 
whole winter’s hard work goes in two or three weeks. 

181 


182 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


The only redeeming feature is, that he is never, in or 
out of his cups, afraid of anything that walks the earth. 

A man comes out of the woods or off the drive with 
two or three hundred dollars, which he is only too 
anxious to throw away by the double handful. It 
follows naturally that a crew of sharpers are on hand 
to find out who gets it. They are a hard lot. Bold, 
unprincipled men, they too are afraid of nothing; not 
even a drunken lumber-jack, which is one of the dan- 
gerous wild animals of the American fauna. Their 
business is to relieve the man of his money as soon 
as possible. They are experts at their business. 

The towns of Bay City and Saginaw alone in 1878 
supported over fourteen hundred tough characters. 
Block after block was devoted entirely to saloons. 
In a radius of three hundred feet from the famous old 
Catacombs could be numbered forty saloons, where 
drinks were sold by from three to ten “ pretty waiter 
girls.” When the boys struck town, the proprietors 
and waitresses stood in their doorways to welcome 
them. 

“ Why, Jack! ” one would cry, “ when did you drift 
in? Tickled to death to see you! Come in an’ have 
a drink. That your chum? Come in, old man, and 
have a drink. Never mind the pay; that’s all right.” 

And after the first drink, Jack, of course, had to 
treat, and then the chum. 

Or if Jack resisted temptation and walked resolutely 
on, one of the girls would remark audibly to another. 

“He ain’t no lumber-jack! You can see that easy 
’nuff! He’s jest off th’ hay-trail!” 

Ten to one that brought him, for the woodsman is 
above all things proud and jealous of his craft. 

In the center of this whirlpool of iniquity stood the 
Catacombs as the hub from which lesser spokes in the 
wheel radiated. Any old logger of the Saginaw Valley 
can tell you of the Catacombs, just as any old logger 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


183 

ot any other valley will tell you of the “ Pen,” the 
“ White Row,” the “ Water Streets ” of Alpena, Port 
Huron, Ludington, Muskegon, and a dozen other lum- 
ber towns. 

The Catacombs was a three-story building. In the 
basement were vile, ill-smelling, ill-lighted dens, small, 
isolated, dangerous. The shanty boy with a small 
stake, far gone in drunkenness, there tasted the last 
drop of wickedness, and thence was flung unconscious 
and penniless on the streets. A trap-door directly into 
the river accommodated those who were inconsiderate 
enough to succumb under rough treatment. 

The second story was given over to drinking. Polly 
Dickson there reigned supreme, an anomaly. She was 
as pretty and fresh and pure-looking as a child; and at 
the same time was one of the most ruthless and un- 
scrupulous of the gang. She could at will exercise a 
fascination the more terrible in that it appealed at once 
to her victim’s nobler instincts of reverence, his capacity 
for what might be called aesthetic fascination, as well 
as his passions. When she finally held him, she 
crushed him as calmly as she would a fly. 

Four bars supplied the drinkables. Dozens of 
“ pretty waiter girls ” served the customers. A force 
of professional fighters was maintained by the estab- 
lishment to preserve that degree of peace which 
should look to the preservation of mirrors and glass- 
ware. 

The third story contained a dance hall and a theater. 
The character of both would better be left to the im- 
agination. 

Night after night during the season, this den ran at 
top-steam. 

By midnight, when the orgy was at its height, the 
windows brilliantly illuminated, the various bursts of 
music, laughing, cursing, singing, shouting, fighting, 
breaking in turn or all together from its open windows, 


184 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

it was, as Jackson Hines once expressed it to me, like 
hell let out for noon. 

The respectable elements of the towns were power- 
less. They could not control the elections. Their 
police would only have risked total annihilation by 
attempting a raid. At the first sign of trouble they 
walked straightly in the paths of their own affairs, 
awaiting the time soon to come when, his stake 
“ blown-in,” the last bitter dregs of his pleasure gulped 
down, the shanty boy would again start for the woods. 


Chapter XXVII 


Ik T* OW in August, however, the first turmoil haa 
/ %/ died. The “ jam n had boiled into town, 
1 f “ taken it apart,” and left the inhabitants to 
piece it together again as they could; the “ rear ” had 
not yet arrived. As a consequence, Thorpe found the 
city comparatively quiet. 

Here and there swaggered a strapping riverman, his 
small felt hat cocked aggressively over one eye, its 
brim curled up behind; a cigar stump protruding at an 
angle from beneath his sweeping moustache; his hands 
thrust into the pockets of his trousers, “ stagged ” off 
at the knee; the spikes of his river boots cutting little 
triangular pieces from the wooden sidewalk. His eye 
was aggressively humorous, and the smile of his face 
was a challenge. 

For in the last month he had faced almost certain 
death a dozen times a day. He had ridden logs down 
the rapids where a loss of balance meant in one instant 
a ducking and in the next a blow on the back from 
some following battering-ram; he had tugged and 
strained and jerked with his peavey under a sheer wall 
of tangled timber twenty feet high, — behind which 
pressed the full power of the freshet, — only to jump 
with the agility of a cat from one bit of unstable footing 
to another when the first sharp crack warned him that 
he had done his work, and that the whole mass was 
about to break down on him like a wave on the 
shore; he had worked fourteen hours a day in 
ice-water, and had slept damp; he had pried at 
the key log in the rollways on the bank until 
185 


i86 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


the whole pile had begun to rattle down into the 
river like a cascade, and had jumped, or ridden, or 
even dived out of danger at the last second. In a 
hundred passes he had juggled with death as a child 
plays with a rubber balloon. No wonder that he has 
brought to the town and his vices a little of the lofty 
bearing of an heroic age. No wonder that he fears no 
man, since nature’s most terrible forces of the flood 
have hurled a thousand weapons at him in vain. His 
muscles have been hardened, his eye is quiet and sure, 
his courage is undaunted, and his movements are as 
quick and accurate as a panther’s. Probably nowhere 
in the world is a more dangerous man of his hands 
than the riverman. He would rather fight than eat, 
especially when he is drunk, as, like the cow-boy, he 
usually is when he gets into town. A history could 
be written of the feuds, the wars, the raids instituted 
by one camp or one town against another. 

The men would go in force sometimes to another 
city with the avowed purpose of cleaning it out. One 
battle I know of lasted nearly all night. Deadly 
weapons were almost never resorted to, unless indeed 
a hundred and eighty pounds of muscle behind a fist 
hard as iron might be considered a deadly weapon. 
A man hard pressed by numbers often resorted to a 
billiard cue, or an ax, or anything else that happened 
to be handy, but that was an expedient called out by 
necessity. Knives or six-shooters implied a certain 
premeditation which was discountenanced. 

On the other hand, the code of fair fighting obtained 
hardly at all. The long spikes of river-boots made an 
admirable weapon in the straight kick. I have seen 
men whose faces were punctured as thickly as though 
by small-pox, where the steel points had penetrated. 
In a free-for-all knock-down-and-drag-out, kicking, 
gouging, and biting are all legitimate. Anything to 
injure the other man, provided always you do not knife 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 187 

jim. And when you take a half dozen of these endur- 
ing, active, muscular, and fiery men, not one entertain- 
ing in his innermost heart the faintest hesitation or fear, 
and set them at each other with the lightning tireless- 
ness of so many wild-cats, you get as hard a fight as 
you could desire. And they seem to like it. 

> One old fellow, a good deal of a character in his 
way, used to be on the “ drive ” for a firm lumbering 
near Six Lakes. He was intensely loyal to his “ Old 
Fellows,” and every time he got a little “ budge ” in 
him, he instituted a raid on the town owned by a rival 
firm. So frequent and so severe did these battles be- 
come that finally the men were informed that another 
such expedition would mean instant discharge. The 
rule had its effect. The raids ceased. 

But one day old Dan visited the saloon once too 
often. He became very warlike. The other men 
merely laughed, for they were strong enough them- 
selves to recognize firmness in others, and it never 
occurred to them that they could disobey so absolute 
a command. So finally Dan started out quite alone. 

He invaded the enemy’s camp, attempted to clean 
out the saloon with a billiard cue single handed, was 
knocked down, and would have been kicked to death 
as he lay on the floor if he had not succeeded in rolling 
under the billiard table where the men’s boots could 
not reach him. As it was, his clothes were literally torn 
to ribbons, one eye was blacked, his nose broken, one 
ear hung to its place by a mere shred of skin, and his 
face and flesh were ripped and torn everywhere by the 
“ corks ” on the boots. Any but a riverman would 
have qualified for the hospital. Dan rolled to the other 
side of the table, made a sudden break, and escaped. 

But his fighting blood was not all spilled. He raided 
the butcher-shop, seized the big carving knife, and re- 
turned to the battle field. 

The enemy decamped — rapidly — some of them 


i88 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


through the window. Dan managed to get in but 
one blow. He ripped the coat down the man’s back 
as neatly as though it had been done with shears, one 
clean straight cut from collar to bottom seam. A quar- 
ter of an inch nearer would have split the fellow’s back- 
bone. As it was, he escaped without even a scratch. 

Dan commandeered two bottles of whisky, and, 
gory and wounded as he was, took up the six-mile 
tramp home, bearing the knife over his shoulder as a 
banner of triumph. 

Next morning, weak from the combined effects of 
war and whisky, he reported to headquarters. 

“What is it, Dan?” asked the Old Fellow without 
turning. 

“ I come to get my time,” replied the riverman 
humbly. 

“What for?” inquired the lumberman. 

“ I have been over to Howard City,” confessed Dan. 

The owner turned and looked him over. 

“ They sort of got ahead of me a little,” explained 
Dan sheepishly. 

The lumberman took stock of the old man’s cuts 
and bruises, and turned away to hide a smile. 

“ I guess I’ll let you off this trip,” said he. “ Go 
to work — when you can. I don’t believe you’ll go 
back there again.” 

“ No, sir,” replied Dan humbly. 

And so the life of alternate work and pleasure, both 
full of personal danger, develops in time a class of men 
whose like is to be found only among the cowboys, 
scouts, trappers, and Indian fighters of our other 
frontiers. The moralists will always hold up the hands 
of horror at such types; the philosopher will admire 
them as the last incarnation of the heroic age, when 
the man is bigger than his work. Soon the factories, 
the machines, the mechanical structures and construc- 
tions, the various branches of co-operation will produce 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 189 

quasl-automatically institutions evidently more impor- 
tant than the genius or force of any one human being. 
The personal element will have become nearly elimi- 
nated. In the woods and on the frontier still are many 
whose powers are greater than their works; whose 
fame is greater than their deeds. They are men, power- 
ful, virile, even brutal at times; but magnificent with 
the strength of courage and resource. 

All this may seem a digression from the thread of 
our tale, but as a matter of fact it is necessary that 
you understand the conditions of the time and place 
in which Harry Thorpe had set himself the duty of 
success. 

He had seen too much of incompetent labor to be 
satisfied with anything but the best. Although his 
ideas were not as yet formulated, he hoped to be able 
to pick up a crew of first-class men from those who 
had come down with the advance, or “ jam,” of the 
spring’s drive. They should have finished their orgies 
by now, and, empty of pocket, should be found hang- 
ing about the boarding-houses and the quieter saloons. 
Thorpe intended to offer good wages for good men. 
He would not need more than twenty at first, for 
during the approaching winter he purposed to log on 
a very small scale indeed. The time for expansion 
would come later. 

With this object in view he set out from his hotel 
about half-past seven on the day of his arrival, to cruise 
about in the lumber-jack district already described. 
The hotel clerk had obligingly given him the names of 
a number of the quieter saloons, where the boys “ hung 
out ” between bursts of prosperity. In the first of 
these Thorpe was helped materially in his vague and 
uncertain quest by encountering an old acquaintance. 

From the sidewalk he heard the vigorous sounds 
of a one-sided altercation punctuated by frequent bursts 
of quickly silenced laughter. Evidently some one was 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


190 

very angry, and the rest amused. After a moment 
Thorpe imagined he recognized the excited voice. So 
he pushed open the swinging screen door and entered. 

The place was typical. Across one side ran the 
hard-wood bar with foot-rest and little towels hung 
in metal clasps under its edge. Behind it was a long 
mirror, a symmetrical pile of glasses, a number of 
plain or ornamental bottles, and a miniature keg or 
so of porcelain containing the finer whiskys and 
brandies. The bar-keeper drew beer from two pumps 
immediately in front of him, and rinsed glasses in some 
sort of a sink under the edge of the bar. The center of. 
the room was occupied by a tremendous stove capable 
of burning whole logs of cordwood. A stovepipe led 
from the stove here and there in wire suspension to a 
final exit near the other corner. On the wall were two 
sporting chromos, and a good variety of lithographed 
calendars and illuminated tin signs advertising beers 
and spirits. The floor was liberally sprinkled with damp 
sawdust, and was occupied, besides the gtove, by a 
number of wooden chairs and a single round table. 

The latter, a clumsy heavy affair beyond the strength 
of an ordinary man, was being deftly interposed be- 
tween himself and the attacks of the possessor of 
the angry voice by a gigantic young riverman in 
the conventional stagged ( [i.e ., chopped off) trousers, 
“ cork ” shoes, and broad belt typical of his craft. 
In the aggressor Thorpe recognized old Jackson 
Hines. 

“Damn you!” cried the old man, qualifying the 
oath, “ let me get at you, you great big sock-stealer, 
I’ll make you hop high! I’ll snatch you bald-headed 
so quick that you’ll think you never had any hair! ” 

“ I’ll settle with you in the morning, Jackson,” 
laughed the riverman. 

“ You want to eat a good breakfast, then, because 
you won’t have no appetite for dinner.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


191 

The men roared, with encouraging calls. The river- 
man put on a ludicrous appearance of offended dig- 
nity. 

“ Oh, you needn’t swell up like a poisoned pup ! ” 
cried old Jackson plaintively, ceasing his attacks from 
sheer weariness. “ You know you’re as safe as a cow 
tied to a brick wall behind that table.” 

Thorpe seized the opportunity to approach. 

“ Hello, Jackson,” said he. 

The old man peered at him out of the blur of his 
excitement. 

“ Don’t you know me?” inquired Thorpe. 

“ Them lamps gives ’bout as much light as a piece 
of chalk,” complained Jackson testily. “ Knows you? 
You bet I do! How are you, Harry? Where you been 
keepin’ yourself? You look ’bout as fat as a stall-fed 
knittin’ needle.” 

“ I’ve been landlooking in the upper peninsula,” 
explained Thorpe, “ on the Ossawinamakee, up in the 
Marquette country.” 

“Sho’!” commented Jackson in wonder, “way up 
there where the moon changes! ” 

“ It’s a fine country,” went on Thorpe so everyone 
could hear, “ with a great cutting of white pine. It 
runs as high as twelve hundred thousand to the forty 
sometimes.” 

“ Trees clean an’ free of limbs? ” asked Jackson. 

“They’re as good as the stuff over on seventeen; 
you remember that.” 

“ Clean as a baby’s leg,” agreed Jackson. 

“ Have a glass of beer? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ Dry as a tobacco box,” confessed Hines. 

“ Have something, the rest of you? ” invited Thorpe. 

So they all drank. 

On a sudden inspiration Thorpe resolved to ask the 
old man’s advice as to crew and horses. It might not 
be good for much, but it would do no harm. 


192 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

Jackson listened attentively to the other’s brief re- 
cital. 

“ Why don’t you see Tim Shearer ? He ain’t doin’ 
nothin’ since the jam came down,” was his comment. 

“ Isn’t he with the M. & D. people? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ Nope. Quit.” 

“ How’s that?” 

“ ’Count of Morrison. Morrison he comes up to run 
things some. He does. Tim he’s getting the drive in 
shape, and he don’t want to be bothered, but old Mor- 
rison he’s as busy as hell beatin’ tan-bark. Finally Tim, 
he calls him. “ ‘ Look here, Mr. Morrison,’ says he, 
* I’m runnin’ this drive. If I don’t get her there, all 
right; you can give me my time. ’Till then you ain’t 
got nothin’ to say.’ 

“ Well, that makes the Old Fellow as sore as a 
scalded pup. He’s used to bossin’ clerks and such 
things, and don’t have much of an idea of lumber- 
jacks. He has big ideas of respect, so he ‘ calls ’ Tim 
dignified like. 

“ Tim didn’t hit him; but I guess he felt like th’ man 
who met the bear without any weapon, — even a news- 
paper would ’a’ come handy. He hands in his time 
t’ once and quits. Sence then he’s been as mad as a 
bar-keep with a lead quarter, which ain’t usual for 
Tim. He’s been filin’ his teeth for M. & D. right along. 
Somethin’s behind it all, I reckon.” 

“Where’ll I find him?” asked Thorpe. 

Jackson gave the name of a small boarding-house. 
Shortly after, Thorpe left him to amuse the others with 
his unique conversation, and hunted up Shearer’s 
stopping-place. 


Chapter XXVIII 

r HE boarding-house proved to be of the typical 
lumber-jack class, — a narrow “ stoop,” a hall- 
way and stairs in the center, and an office and 
bar on either side. Shearer and a half dozen other men 
about his own age sat, their chairs on two legs and their 
“ cork ” boots on the rounds of the chairs, smoking 
placidly in the tepid evening air. The light came from 
inside the building, so that while Thorpe was in plain 
view, he could not make out which of the dark figures 
on the piazza was the man he wanted. He approached, 
and attempted an identifying scrutiny. The men, with 
the taciturnity of their class in the presence of a 
stranger, said nothing. 

“ Well, bub,” finally drawled a voice from the corner, 
“ blowed that stake you made out of Radway, yet? ” 
“That you, Shearer?” inquired Thorpe advancing. 
“ You’re the man I’m looking for.” 

“ You’ve found me,” replied the old man dryly. 
Thorpe was requested elaborately to “ shake hands ” 
with the owners of six names. Then he had a chance 
to intimate quietly to Shearer that he wanted a word 
with him alone. The riverman rose silently and led 
the way up the straight, uncarpeted stairs, along a 
narrow, uncarpeted hall, to a square, uncarpeted bed- 
room. The walls and ceiling of this apartment were of 
unpainted planed pine. It contained a cheap bureau, 
one chair, and a bed and washstand to match the 
bureau. Shearer lit the lamp and sat on the bed. 

“ What is it? ” he asked. 

“ I have a little pine up in the northern peninsula 
i93 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


194 

within walking distance of Marquette,” said Thorpe, 
“ and I want to get a crew of about twenty men. It 
occurred to me that you might be willing to help 
me.” 

The riverman frowned steadily at his interlocutor 
from under his bushy brows. 

“ How much pine you got? ” he asked finally. 

“ About three hundred millions,” replied Thorpe 
quietly. 

The old man’s blue eyes fixed themselves with un- 
wavering steadiness on Thorpe’s face. 

“You’re jobbing some of it, eh?” he submitted 
finally as the only probable conclusion. “ Do you think 
you know enough about it ? Who does it belong to ? ” 

“ It belongs to a man named Carpenter and my- 
self.” 

The riverman pondered this slowly for an appre- 
ciable interval, and then shot out another question. 

“ How’d you get it? ” 

Thorpe told him simply, omitting nothing except 
the name of the firm up-river. When he had finished, 
Shearer evinced no astonishment nor approval. 

“ You done well,” he commented finally. Then after 
another interval: 

“ Have you found out who was the men stealin’ the 
pine? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Thorpe quietly, “ it was Morrison 
& Daly.” 

The old man flickered not an eyelid. He slowly 
filled his pipe and lit it. 

“ I’ll get you a crew of men,” said he, “ if you’ll 
take me as foreman.” 

“ But it’s a little job at first,” protested Thorpe. “ I 
only want a camp of twenty. It wouldn’t be worth 
your while.” 

“ That’s my look-out. I’ll take th’ job,” replied the 
logger grimly. “ You got three hundred million there, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


>95 

ain’t you? And you’re goin’ to cut it? It ain’t such a 
small job.” 

Thorpe could hardly believe his good-fortune in 
having gained so important a recruit. With a practical 
man as foreman, his mind would be relieved of a great 
deal of worry over unfamiliar detail. He saw at once 
that he would himself be able to perform all the duties 
of scaler, keep in touch with the needs of the camp, 
and supervise the campaign. Nevertheless he an- 
swered the older man’s glance with one as keen, and 
said: 

“ Look here, Shearer, if you take this job, we may as 
well understand each other at the start. This is going 
to be my camp, and I’m going to be boss. I don’t 
know much about logging, and I shall want you to 
take charge of all that, but I shall want to know just 
why you do each thing, and if my judgment advises 
otherwise, my judgment goes. If I want to discharge 
a man, he walks without any question. I know about 
what I shall expect of each man; and I intend to get 
it out of him. And in questions of policy mine is the 
say-so every trip. Now I know you’re a good man, — 
one of the best there is, — and I presume I shall find 
your judgment the best, but I don’t want any mistakes 
to start with. If you want to be my foreman on those 
terms, just say so, and I’ll be tickled to death to have 
you.” 

For the first time the lumberman’s face lost, during 
a single instant, its mask of immobility. His steel- 
blue eyes flashed, his mouth twitched with some strong 
emotion. For the first time, too, he spoke without 
his contemplative pause of preparation. 

“ That’s th’ way to talk! ” he cried. “ Go with you? 
Well I should rise to remark! You’re the boss; and 
I always said it. I’ll get you a gang of bully boys 
that will roll logs till there’s skating in hell! ” 

Thorpe left, after making an appointment at his own 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


196 

hotel for the following day, more than pleased with 
his luck. Although he had by now fairly good and 
practical ideas in regard to the logging of a bunch of 
pine, he felt himself to be very deficient in the details. 
In fact, he anticipated his next step with shaky confi- 
dence. He would now be called upon to buy four 
or five teams of horses, and enough feed to last them 
the entire winter; he would have to arrange for pro- 
visions in abundance and variety for his men; he would 
have to figure on blankets, harness, cook-camp uten- 
sils, stoves, blacksmith tools, iron, axes, chains, cant- 
hooks, van-goods, pails, lamps, oil, matches, all sorts 
of hardware, — in short, all the thousand and one 
things, from needles to court-plaster, of which a self- 
sufficing community might come in need. And he 
would have to figure out his requirements for the en- 
tire winter. After navigation closed, he could import 
nothing more. 

How could he know what to buy, — how many bar- 
rels of flour, how much coffee, raisins, baking powder, 
soda, pork, beans, dried apples, sugar, nutmeg, pepper, 
salt, crackers, molasses, ginger, lard, tea, corned beef, 
catsup, mustard, — to last twenty men five or six 
months? How could he be expected to think of each 
item of a list of two hundred, the lack of which meant 
measureless bother, and the desirability of which sug- 
gested itself only when the necessity arose? It is easy, 
when the mind is occupied with multitudinous detail, 
to forget simple things, like brooms or iron shovels 
With Tim Shearer to help his inexperience, he felt 
easy. He knew he could attend to advantageous buy- 
ing, and to making arrangements with the steamship 
line to Marquette for the landing of his goods at the 
mouth of the Ossawinamakee. 

Deep in these thoughts, he wandered on at random. 
He suddenly came to himself in the toughest quarter 
of Bay City. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


197 

Through the summer night shrilled the sound of 
cachinations painted to the colors of mirth. A cheap 
piano rattled and thumped through an open window. 
Men’s and women’s voices mingled in rising and fall- 
ing gradations of harshness. Lights streamed irregu- 
larly across the dark. 

Thorpe became aware of a figure crouched in the 
door-way almost at his feet. The sill lay in shadow so 
the bulk was lost, but the flickering rays of a distant 
street lamp threw into relief the high-lights of a violin, 
and a head. The face upturned to him was thin and 
white and wolfish under a broad white brow. Dark 
eyes gleamed at him with the expression of a fierce 
animal. Across the forehead ran a long but shallow 
cut from which blood dripped. The creature clasped 
both arms around a violin. He crouched there and 
stared up at Thorpe, who stared down at him. 

“ What’s the matter? ” asked the latter finally. 

The creature made no reply, but drew his arms 
closer about his instrument, and blinked his wolf eyes. 

Moved by some strange, half-tolerant whim of 
compassion, Thorpe made a sign to the unknown to 
rise. 

“ Come with me,” said he, “ and I’ll have your 
forehead attended to.” 

The wolf eyes gleamed into his with a sudden savage 
concentration. Then their owner obediently arose. 

Thorpe now saw that the body before him was of 
a cripple, short-legged, hunch-backed, long-armed, 
pigeon-breasted. The large head sat strangely top- 
heavy between even the broad shoulders. It confirmed 
the hopeless but sullen despair that brooded on the 
white countenance. 

At the hotel Thorpe, examining the cut, found it 
more serious in appearance than in reality. With a 
few pieces of sticking plaster he drew its edges to- 
gether. 


198 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

Then he attempted to interrogate his find. 

“ What is your name? ” he asked. 

“ Phil/’ 

“ Phil what? ” 

Silence. 

“ How did you get hurt? ” 

No reply. 

“ Were you playing your fiddle in one of those 
houses? ” 

The cripple nodded slowly. 

“ Are you hungry ? ” asked Thorpe, with a sudden 
thoughtfulness. 

“ Yes,” replied the cripple, with a lightning gleam in 
his wolf eyes. 

Thorpe rang the bell. To the boy who answered it 
he said: 

“ Bring me half a dozen beef sandwiches and a glass 
of milk, and be quick about it.” 

“ Do you play the fiddle much? ” continued Thorpe. 

The cripple nodded again. 

“ Let’s hear what you can do.” 

“ They cut my strings! ” cried Phil with a passionate 
wail. 

The cry came from the heart, and Thorpe was 
touched by it. The price of strings was evidently a big 
sum. 

“ I’ll get you more in the morning,” said he. 
“ Would you like to leave Bay City? ” 

“Yes! ” cried the boy with passion. 

“ You would have to work. You would have to be 
chore-boy in a lumber camp, and play fiddle for the 
men when they wanted you to.” 

“ I’ll do it,” said the cripple. 

“Are you sure you could? You will have to split 
all the wood for the men, the cook, and the office; 
you will have to draw the water, and fill the lamps, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


m 

and keep the camps clean. You will be paid for it, 
but it is quite a job. And you would have to do it 
well. If you did not do it well, I would discharge 
you.” 

“I will do it!” repeated the cripple with a shade 
more earnestness. 

“ All right, then I’ll take you,” replied Thorpe. 

The cripple said nothing, nor moved a muscle of 
his face, but the gleam of the wolf faded to give place 
to the soft, affectionate glow seen in the eyes of a setter 
dog. Thorpe was startled at the change. 

A knock announced the sandwiches and milk. The 
cripple fell upon them with both hands in a sudden 
ecstacy of hunger. When he had finished, he looked 
again at Thorpe, and this time there were tears in his 
eyes. 

A little later Thorpe interviewed the proprietor of 
the hotel. 

“ I wish you’d give this boy a good cheap room and 
charge his keep to me,” said he. “ He’s going north 
with me.” 

Phil was led away by the irreverent porter, hugging 
tightly his unstrung violin to his bosom. 

Thorpe lay awake for some time after retiring. Phil 
claimed a share of his thoughts. 

Thorpe’s winter in the woods had impressed upon 
him that a good cook and a fiddler will do more to keep 
men contented than high wages and easy work. So 
his protection of the cripple was not entirely disinter- 
ested. But his imagination persisted in occupying 
itself with the boy. What terrible life of want and 
vicious associates had he led in this terrible town? 
What treatment could have lit that wolf-gleam in his 
eyes? What hell had he inhabited that he was so eager 
to get away? In an hour or so he dozed. He dreamed 
that the cripple had grown to enormous proportions 


200 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


and was overshadowing his life. A slight noise outside 
his bed-room door brought him to his feet. 

He opened the door and found that in the stillness 
of the night the poor deformed creature had taken the 
blankets from his bed and had spread them across the 
door-sill of the man who had befriended him. 


Chapter XXIX 

r HREE weeks later the steam barge Pole Star 
sailed down the reach of Saginaw Bay. 

Thorpe had received letters from Carpenter 
advising him of a credit to him at a Marquette bank, 
and inclosing a draft sufficient for current expenses. 
Tim Shearer had helped make out the list of neces- 
saries. In time everything was loaded, the gang- 
plank hauled in, and the little band of Argonauts set 
their faces toward the point where the Big Dipper 
swings. < 

The weather was beautiful. Each morning the sun 
rose out of the frosty blue lake water, and set in a sea 
of deep purple. The moon, once again at the full, 
drew broad paths across the pathless waste. From the 
southeast blew daily the lake trades, to die at sunset, 
and then to return in the soft still nights from the west. 
A more propitious beginning for the adventure could 
not be imagined. 

The ten horses in the hold munched their hay and 
oats as peaceably as though at home in their own 
stables. Jackson Hines had helped select them from 
the stock of firms changing locality or going out of 
business. His judgment in such matters was infallible, 
but he had resolutely refused to take the position of 
barn-boss which Thorpe offered him. 

“ No,” said he, “ she’s too far north. I’m gettin’ old, 
and the rheumatics ain’t what you might call aban- 
donin’ of me. Up there it’s colder than hell on a 
stoker’s holiday.” 

So Shearer had picked out a barn-boss of his own. 
201 


202 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


This man was important, for the horses are the main- 
stay of logging operations. He had selected also, a 
blacksmith, a cook, four teamsters, half a dozen cant- 
hook men, and as many handy with ax or saw. 

“ The blacksmith is also a good wood-butcher (car- 
penter),” explained Shearer. “ Four teams is all we 
ought to keep going at a clip. If we need a few ax- 
men, we can pick ’em up at Marquette. I think this 
gang’ll stick. I picked ’em.” 

There was not a young man in the lot. They were 
most of them in the prime of middle life, between 
thirty and forty, rugged in appearance, “ cocky ” in 
manner, with the swagger and the oath of so many 
buccaneers, hard as nails. Altogether Thorpe thought 
them about as rough a set of customers as he had ever 
seen. Throughout the day they played cards on deck, 
and spat tobacco juice abroad, and swore incessantly. 
Toward himself and Shearer their manner was an odd 
mixture of independent equality and a slight deference. 

It was as much as to say, “ You’re the boss, but I’m as 
good a man as you any day.” They would be a rough, 
turbulent, unruly mob to handle, but under a strong 
man they might accomplish wonders. 

Constituting the elite of the profession, as it were, 

— whose swagger every lad new to the woods and 
river tried to emulate, to whom lesser lights looked 
up as heroes and models, and whose lofty, half-con- 
temptuous scorn of everything and everybody outside 
their circle of “ bully boys ” was truly the aristocracy 
of c^ss, — Thorpe might have wondered at their con- 
senting to work for an obscure little camp belonging 
to a greenhorn. Loyalty to and pride in the firm for 
which he works is a strong characteristic of the lumber- 
jack. He will fight at the drop of a hat on behalf of * 
his “ Old Fellows brag loud and long of the season’s 
cut, the big loads, the smart methods of his camps; 
and even after he has been discharged for some 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


203 

flagrant debauch, he cherishes no rancor, but speaks 
with soft reminiscence to the end of his days concern- 
ing “ that winter in ’81 when the Old Fellows put in 
sixty million on Flat River.” 

For this reason he feels that he owes it to his repu- 
tation to ally himself only with firms of creditable size 
and efficiency. The small camps are for the young- 
sters. Occasionally you will see two or three of the 
veterans in such a camp, but it is generally a case of 
lacking something better. 

The truth is, Shearer had managed to inspire in the 
minds of his cronies an idea that they were about to 
participate in a fight. He re-told Thorpe’s story 
artistically, shading the yellows and the reds. He 
detailed the situation as it existed. The men agreed 
that the “ young fellow had sand enough for a lake 
front.” After that there needed but a little skillful 
maneuvering to inspire them with the idea that it would 
be a great thing to take a hand, to “ make a camp ” 
in spite of the big concern up-river. 

Shearer knew that this attitude was tentative. Every- 
thing depended on how well Thorpe lived up to his 
reputation at the outset, — how good a first impression 
of force and virility he would manage to convey, — for 
the first impression possessed the power of transmut- 
ing the present rather ill-defined enthusiasm into 
loyalty or dissatisfaction. But Tim himself believed 
in Thorpe blindly. So he had no fears. 

A little incident at the beginning of the voyage did 
much to reassure him. It was on the old question of 
whisky. 

Thorpe had given orders that no whisky was to be 
brought aboard, as he intended to tolerate no high-sea 
orgies. Soon after leaving dock he saw one of the 
teamsters drinking from a pint flask. Without a word 
he stepped briskly forward, snatched the bottle from 
the man’s lips, and threw it overboard. Then he turned 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


204 

sharp on his heel and walked away, without troubling 
himself as to how the fellow was going to take it. 

The occurrence pleased the men, for it showed them 
they had made no mistake. But it meant little else. 
The chief danger really was lest they become too set- 
tled in the protective attitude. As they took it, they 
were about, good-naturedly, to help along a worthy 
greenhorn. This they considered exceedingly gener- 
ous on their part, and in their own minds they were 
inclined to look on Thorpe much as a grown man 
would look on a child. There needed an occasion for 
him to prove himself bigger than they. 

Fine weather followed them up the long blue reach 
of Lake Huron; into the noble breadth of the Detour 
Passage, past the opening through the Thousand 
Islands of the Georgian Bay; into the St. Mary’s River. 
They were locked through after some delay on account 
of the grain barges from Duluth, and at last turned 
their prow westward in the Big Sea Water, beyond 
which lay Hiawatha’s Po-ne-mah, the Land of the 
Hereafter. 

Thorpe was about late that night, drinking in the 
mystic beauty of the scene. Northern lights, pale and 
dim, stretched their arc across beneath the Dipper. 
The air, soft as the dead leaves of spring, fanned his 
cheek. By and by the moon, like a red fire at sea, 
lifted itself from the waves. Thorpe made his way to 
the stern, beyond the square deck house, where he 
intended to lean on the rail in silent contemplation of 
the moon-path. 

.He found another before him. Phil, the little 
cripple, was peering into the wonderful east, its light 
in his eyes. He did not look at Thorpe when the latter 
approached, but seemed aware of his presence, for he 
moved swiftly to give room. 

“It is very beautiful; isn’t it, Phil?” said Thorpe 
after a moment. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


20 $ 

“ It is the Heart Song of the Sea,” replied the cripple 
in a hushed voice. 

Thorpe looked down surprised. 

“ Who told you that? ” he asked. 

But the cripple, repeating the words of a chance 
preacher, could explain himself no farther. In a dim 
way the ready-made phrase had expressed the smoth- 
ered poetic craving of his heart, — the belief that the 
sea, the sky, the woods, the men and women, you, I, 
all have our Heart Songs, the Song which is most 
beautiful. 

“ The Heart Song of the Sea,” he repeated gropingly. 
“ I don’t know ... I play it,” and he made the 
motion of drawing a bow across strings, “ very still and 
low.” And this was all Thorpe’s question could elicit. 

Thorpe fell silent in the spell of the night, and pon- 
dered over the chances of life which had cast on the 
shores of the deep as driftwood the soul of a poet. 

“ Your Song,” said the cripple timidly, “ some day 
I will hear it. Not yet. That night in Bay City, when 
you took me in, I heard it very dim. But I cannot 
play it yet on my violin.” 

“ Has your violin a song of its own?” queried the 
man. 

“ I cannot hear it. It tries to sing, but there is some- 
thing in the way. I cannot. Some day I will hear it 
and play it, but — ” and he drew nearer Thorpe and 
touched his arm — “ that day will be very bad for me. 
I lose something.” His eyes of the wistful dog were 
big and wondering. 

“ Queer little Phil! ” cried Thorpe laughing whim- 
sically. “ Who tells you these things? ” 

“ Nobody,” said the cripple dreamily, “ they come 
when it is like to-night. In Bay City they do not 
come.” 

At this moment a third voice broke in on them. 

" Oh, it’s you, Mr. Thorpe,” said the captain of the 


206 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


vessel. “ Thought it was some of them lumber-jacks, 
and I was going to fire ’em below. Fine night.” 

“ It is that,” answered Thorpe, again the cold, un- 
responsive man of reticence. “ When do you expect 
to get in, Captain?” 

“ About to-morrow noon,” replied the captain, mov- 
ing away. Thorpe followed him a short distance, dis- 
cussing the landing. The cripple stood all night, his 
bright, luminous eyes gazing clear and unwinking at 
the moonlight, listening to his Heart Song of the 
Sea. 


Chapter XXX 


IK "TEXT morning continued the traditions of its 
/ calm predecessors. Therefore by daybreak 
X V every man was at work. The hatches were 
opened, and soon between-decks was cumbered with 
boxes, packing cases, barrels, and crates. In their im- 
provised stalls, the patient horses seemed to catch a 
hint of shore-going and whinnied. By ten o’clock there 
loomed against the strange coast line of the Pictured 
Rocks, a shallow bay and what looked to be a dock 
distorted by the northern mirage. 

“ That’s her,” said the captain. 

Two hours later the steamboat swept a wide curve, 
slid between the yellow waters of two outlying reefs, 
and, with slackened speed, moved slowly toward the 
wharf of log cribs filled with stone. 

The bay or the dock Thorpe had never seen. He 
took them on the captain’s say-so. He knew very well 
that the structure had been erected by and belonged to 
Morrison & Daly, but the young man had had the fore- 
sight to purchase the land lying on the deep water side 
of the bay. He therefore anticipated no trouble in 
unloading; for while Morrison & Daly owned the pier 
itself, the land on which it abutted belonged to him. 

From the arms of the bay he could make out a dozen 
figures standing near the end of the wharf. When, 
with propeller reversed, the Pole Star bore slowly down 
towards her moorings, Thorpe recognized Dyer at the 
head of eight or ten woodsmen. The sight of Radway’s 
old scaler somehow filled him with a quiet but danger- 
207 


208 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


ous anger, especially since that official, on whom rested 
a portion at least of the responsibility of the jobber’s 
failure, was now found in the employ of the very com- 
pany which had attempted that failure. It looked 
suspicious. 

“ Catch this line! ” sung out the mate, hurling the 
coil of a handline on the wharf. 

No one moved, and the little rope, after a moment, 
slid overboard with a splash. 

The captain, with a curse, signalled full speed astern. 

“ Captain Morse!” cried Dyer, stepping forward. 
“ My orders are that you are to land here nothing but 
M. & D. merchandise.” 

“ I have a right to land,” answered Thorpe. “ The 
shore belongs to me.” 

“ This dock doesn’t,” retorted the other sharply, 
“ and you can’t set foot on her.” 

“ You have no legal status. You had no business 

building in the first place ” began Thorpe, and 

then stopped with a choke of anger at the futility of 
arguing legality in such a case. 

The men had gathered interestedly in the waist of 
the ship, cool, impartial, severely critical. The vessel, 
gathering speed astern, but not yet obeying her re- 
versed helm, swung her bow in towards the dock. 
Thorpe ran swiftly forward, and during the instant of 
rubbing contact, leaped. 

He alighted squarely upon his feet. Without an in- 
stant’s hesitation, hot with angry energy at finding his 
enemy within reach of his hand, he rushed on Dyer, 
and with one full, clean in-blow stretched him stunned 
on the dock. For a moment there was a pause of 
astonishment. Then the woodsmen closed upon 
him. 

During that instant Thorpe had become possessed of 
a weapon. It came hurling through the air from above 
to fall at his feet. Shearer, with the cool calculation 


1 



He rushed on Dyer , and with one full , clean 
in-blow stretched him on the dock . 



























































r. t 


no 


« 













































THE BLAZED TRAIL 


209 

of the pioneer whom no excitement can distract from 
the main issue, had seen that it would be impossible to 
follow his chief, and so had done the next best thing, 
— thrown him a heavy iron belaying pin. 

Thorpe was active, alert, and strong. The men 
could come at him only in front. As offset, he could 
not give ground, even for one step. Still, in the hands 
of a powerful man, the belaying pin is by no means a 
despicable weapon. Thorpe hit with all his strength 
and quickness. He was conscious once of being on the 
point of defeat. Then he had cleared a little space 
for himself. Then the men were on him again more 
savagely than ever. One fellow even succeeded in hit- 
ting him a glancing blow on the shoulder. 

Then came a sudden crash. Thorpe was nearly 
thrown from his feet. The next instant a score of yell- 
ing men leaped behind and all around him. There 
ensued a me cent's scufffe, the sound of dull blows; 
and the dock was clear of all but Dyer and three others 
who were, like himself, unconscious. The captain, 
yielding to the excitement, had run his prow plump 
against the wharf. 

Some of the crew received the mooring lines. All 
was ready for disembarkation. 

Bryan Moloney, a strapping Irish-American of the 
big-boned, r.ed-cheeked type, threw some water over 
the four stunned combatants. Slowly they came to 
life. They were promptly yanked to their feet by the 
irate rivermen, who commenced at once to bestow 
sundry vigorous kicks and shakings by way of punish- 
ment. Thorpe interposed. 

“ Quit it! ” he commanded. “ Let them go! ” 

The men grumbled. One or two were inclined to 
be openly rebellious. 

“ If I hear another peep out of you,” said Thorpe 
to these latter, “ you can climb right aboard and take 
the return trip.” He looked them in the eye until they 


210 


THE BLAZED TRAlD 


muttered, and then went on: “ Now, we’ve got to get 
unloaded and our goods ashore before those fellows 
report to camp. Get right moving, and hustle! ” 

If the men expected any comment, approval, or 
familiarity from their leader on account of their little 
fracas, they were disappointed. This was a good thing. 
The lumber-jack demands in his boss a certain funda- 
mental unapproachability, whatever surface bonhomie 
he may evince. 

So Dyer and his men picked themselves out of the 
trouble sullenly and departed. The ex-scaler had 
nothing to say as long as he was within reach, but 
when he had gained the shore, he turned. 

“ You won’t think this is so funny when you get in 
the law-courts! ” he shouted. 

Thorpe made no reply. “ I guess we’ll keep even,” 
he muttered. 

“ By the jumping Moses,” snarled Scotty Parsons 
turning in threat. 

“ Scotty! ” said Thorpe sharply. 

Scotty turned back to his task, which was to help 
the blacksmith put together the wagon, the component 
parts of which the others had trundled out. 

With thirty men at the job it does not take a great 
while to move a small cargo thirty or forty feet. By 
three o’clock the Pole Star was ready to continue her 
journey. Thorpe climbed aboard, leaving Shearer in 
charge. 

“ Keep the men at it, Tim,” said he. “ Put up the 
walls of the warehouse good and strong, and move the 
stuff in. If it rains, you can spread the tent over the 
roof, and camp in with the provisions. If you get 
through before I return, you might take a scout up 
the river and fix on a camp site. I’ll bring back the 
lumber for roofs, floors, and trimmings with me, and 
will try to pick up a few axmen for swamping. Above 
all things, have a good man or so always in charge. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


21 1 

Those fellows won’t bother us any more for the pres- 
ent, I think ; but it pays to be on deck. So long.” 

In Marquette, Thorpe arranged for the cashing of 
his time checks and orders; bought lumber at the mills; 
talked contract with old Harvey, the mill-owner and 
prospective buyer of the young man’s cut; and engaged 
four axmen whom he found loafing about, waiting for 
the season to open. 

When he returned to the bay le found the warehouse 
complete except for the roofs and gables. These, with 
their reinforcement of tar-paper, were nailed on in 
short order. Shearer and Andrews, the surveyor, were 
scouting up the river. 

“ No trouble from above, boys?” asked Thorpe. 

“ Nary trouble,” they replied. 

The warehouse was secured by padlocks, the wagon 
loaded with the tent and the necessaries of life and 
work. Early in the morning the little procession — 
laughing, joking, skylarking with the high spirits of 
men in the woods — took its way up the river-trail. 
Late that evening, tired, but still inclined to mischief, 
they came to the first dam, where Shearer and An- 
drews met them. 

“How do you like it, Tim?” asked Thorpe that 
evening. 

“ She’s all right,” replied the riverman with em- 
phasis; which, for him, was putting it strong. 

At noon of the following day the party arrived at 
the second dam. Here Shearer had decided to build 
the permanent camp. Injin Charley was constructing 
one of his endless series of birch-bark canoes. Later 
he would paddle the whole string to Marquette, where 
he would sell them to a hardware dealer for two dollars 
and a half apiece. 

To Thorpe, who had walked on ahead with his fore- 
man, it seemed that he had never been away. There 
was the knoll; the rude camp with the deer hides; the 


212 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


venison hanging suspended from the pole; the endless 
broil and tumult of the clear north-country stream; the 
yellow glow over the hill opposite. Yet he had gone 
a nearly penniless adventurer; he returned at the head 
of an enterprise. 

Injin Charley looked up and grunted as Thorpe ap- 
proached. 

“ How are you, Charley ? ” greeted Thorpe reti- 
cently. 

“ You gettum pine? Good! ” replied Charley in the 
same tone. 

That was all; for strong men never talk freely of 
what is in their hearts. There is no need; they under- 
stand. 


Chapter XXXI 

r WO months passed away. Winter set in. The 
camp was built and inhabited. Routine had 
established itself, and all was going well. 

The first move of the M. & D. Company had been 
one of conciliation. Thorpe was approached by the 
walking-boss of the camps up-river. The man made 
no reference to or excuse for what had occurred, nor 
did he pretend to any hypocritical friendship for the 
younger firm. His proposition was entirely one of 
mutual advantage. The Company had gone to consid- 
erable expense in constructing the pier of stone cribs. 
It would be impossible for the steamer to land at any 
other point. Thorpe had undisputed possession of the 
shore, but the Company could as indisputably remove 
the dock. Let it stay where it was. Both companies 
could then use it for their mutual convenience. 

To this Thorpe agreed. Baker, the walking-boss, 
tried to get him to sign a contract to that effect. 
Thorpe refused. 

“ Leave your dock where it is and use it when you 
want to,” said he. “ I’ll agree not to interfere as long 
as you people behave yourselves.” 

The actual logging was opening up well. Both 
Shearer and Thorpe agreed that it would not do to be 
too ambitious the first year. They set about clearing 
their banking ground about a half mile below the first 
dam; and during the six weeks before snow-fall cut 
three short roads of half a mile each. Approximately 
two million feet would be put in from these roads — 
which could be extended in years to come — while 
215 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


214 

another million could be travoyed directly to the land- 
ing from its immediate vicinity. 

“ We won’t skid them,” said Tim. “ We’ll haul from 
the stump to the bank. And we’ll tackle only a snow- 
road proposition: — we ain’t got time to monkey with 
buildin’ sprinklers and plows this year. We’ll make 
a little stake ahead, and then next year we’ll do it right 
and get in twenty million. That railroad’ll get along 
a ways by then, and men’ll be more plenty.” 

Through the lengthening evenings they sat crouched 
on wooden boxes either side of the stove, conversing 
rarely, gazing at one spot with a steady persistency 
which was only an outward indication of the persistency 
with which their minds held to the work in hand. Tim, 
the older at the business, showed this trait more 
strongly than Thorpe. The old man thought of noth- 
ing but logging. From the stump to the bank, from 
the bank to the camp, from the camp to the stump 
again, his restless intelligence travelled tirelessly, pick- 
ing up, turning over, examining the littlest details with 
an ever-fresh curiosity and interest. Nothing was 
too small to escape this deliberate scrutiny. Nothing 
was in so perfect a state that it did not bear one more 
inspection. He played the logging as a chess player 
his game. One by one he adopted the various possi- 
bilities, remote and otherwise, as hypotheses, and 
thought out to the uttermost copper rivet what would 
be the best method of procedure in case that possibility 
should confront him. 

Occasionally Thorpe would introduce some other 
topic of conversation. The old man would listen to his 
remark with the attention of courtesy; would allow a 
decent period of silence to intervene; and then, revert- 
ing to the old subject without comment on the new, 
would emit one of his terse practical suggestions, result 
of a long spell of figuring. That is how success is 
made. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 215 

In the men’s camp the crew lounged, smoked, 
danced, or played cards. In those days no one thought 
of forbidding gambling. One evening Thorpe, who 
had been too busy to remember Phil’s violin, — al- 
though he noticed, as he did every other detail of the 
camp, the cripple’s industry, and the precision with 
which he performed his duties, — strolled over and 
looked through the window. A dance was in progress. 
The men were waltzing, whirling solemnly round and 
round, gripping firmly each other’s loose sleeves just 
above the elbow. At every third step of the waltz they 
stamped one foot. 

Perched on a cracker box sat Phil. His head was 
thrust forward almost aggressively over his instru- 
ment, and his eyes glared at the dancing men with the 
old wolf-like gleam. As he played, he drew the bow 
across with a swift jerk, thrust it back with another, 
threw his shoulders from one side to the other in 
abrupt time to the music. And the music! Thorpe 
unconsciously shuddered; then sighed in pity. It was 
atrocious. It was not even In tune. Two out of three 
of the notes were either sharp or flat, not so flagrantly 
as to produce absolute disharmony, but just enough to 
set the teeth on edge. And the rendition was as color- 
less as that of a poor hand-organ. 

The performer seemed to grind out his fearful stuff 
with a fierce delight, in which appeared little of the 
aesthetic pleasure of the artist. Thorpe was at a loss 
to define it. 

“ Poor Phil,” he said to himself. “ He has the musi- 
cal soul without even the musical ear! ” 

Next day, while passing out of the cook camp he 
addressed one of the men: 

“ Well, Billy,” he inquired, “ how do you like your 
fiddler?” 

“ All right! ” replied Billy with emphasis. “ She’s 
got some go to her.” 


2l6 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


In the woods the work proceeded finely. From the 
travoy sledges and the short roads a constant stream 
of logs emptied itself on the bank. There long parallel 
skidways had been laid the whole width of the river 
valley. Each log as it came was dragged across those 
monster andirons and rolled to the bank of the river. 
The cant-hook men dug their implements into the 
rough bark, leaned, lifted, or clung to the projecting 
stocks until slowly the log moved, rolling with gradu- 
ally increasing momentum. Then they attacked it 
with fury lest the momentum be lost. Whenever it 
began to deviate from the straight rolling necessary to 
keep it on the center of the skids, one of the workers 
thrust the shoe of his cant-hook under one end of the 
log. That end promptly stopped; the other, still roll- 
ing, soon caught up; and the log moved on evenly, as 
was fitting. 

At the end of the rollway the log collided with other 
logs and stopped with the impact of one bowling ball 
against another. The men knew that being caught 
between the two meant death or crippling for life. 
Nevertheless they escaped from the narrowing interval 
at the latest possible moment, for it is easier to keep a 
log rolling than to start it. 

Then other men piled them by means of long steel 
chains and horses, just as they would have skidded them 
in the woods. Only now the logs mounted up and up 
until the skidways were thirty or forty feet high. 
Eventually the pile of logs would fill the banking 
ground utterly, burying the landing under a nearly 
continuous carpet of timber as thick as a two-story 
house is tall. The work is dangerous. A saw log 
containing six hundred board feet weighs about one 
ton. This is the weight of an ordinary iron safe 
When one of them rolls or falls from even a moderate 
height, its force is irresistible. But when twenty or 
thirty cascade down the bold front of a skidway, carry- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


217 

ing a man or so with them, the affair becomes a catas- 
trophe. t 

Thorpe's men, however, were all old-timers, and 
nothing of the sort occurred. At first it made him catch 
his breath to see the apparent chances they took; but 
after a little he perceived that seeming luck was in 
reality a coolness of judgment and a long experience in 
the peculiar ways of that most erratic of inanimate 
cussedness — the pine log. The banks grew daily. 
Everybody was safe and sound. 

The young lumberman *had sense enough to know 
that, while a crew such as his is supremely effective, it 
requires careful handling to keep it good-humored and 
willing. He knew every man by his first name, and each 
day made it a point to talk with him for a moment or 
so. The subject was invariably some phase of the 
work. Thorpe never permitted himself the familiarity 
of introducing any other topic. By this course he pre- 
served the nice balance between too great reserve, 
which chills the lumber-jack’s rather independent en- 
thusiasm, and the too great familiarity, which loses his 
respect. He never replied directly to an objection or 
a request, but listened to it non-committally; and later, 
without explanation or reasoning, acted as his judg- 
ment dictated. Even Shearer, with whom he was in 
most intimate contact, respected this trait in him. 
Gradually he came to feel that he was making a way 
with his men. It was a status, not assured as yet nor 
even very firm, but a status for all that. 

Then one day one of the best men, a teamster, came 
in to make some objection to the cooking. As a matter 
of fact, the cooking was perfectly good. It generally 
is, in a well-conducted camp, but the lumber-jack is a 
great hand to growl, and he usually begins with his 
food. 

Thorpe listened to his vague objections in silence. 

" All right,” he remarked simply. 


218 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Next day he touched the man on the shoulder just 
as he was starting to work. 

“ Step into the office and get your time,” said he. 

“ What’s the matter?” asked the man. 

“ I don’t need you any longer.” 

The two entered the little office. Thorpe looked 
through the ledger and van book, and finally handed 
the man his slip. 

“ Where do I get this? ” asked the teamster, looking 
at it uncertainly. 

“ At the bank in Marquette,” replied Thorpe with- 
out glancing around. 

“ Have I got to go ’way up to Marquette? ” 

“ Certainly,” replied Thorpe briefly. 

“ Who’s going to pay my fare south? ” 

“ You are. You can get work at Marquette.” 

“ That ain’t a fair shake,” cried the man excitedly. 

“ I’ll have no growlers in this camp,” said Thorpe 
with decision. 

“ By God! ” cried the man, “ you damned ” 

“ You get out of here! ” cried Thorpe with a con- 
centrated blaze of energetic passion that made the fel- 
low step back. 

“ I ain’t goin’ to get on the wrong side of the law 
by foolin’ with this office,” cried the other at the door, 
“ but if I had you outside for a minute ” 

“ Leave this office! ” shouted Thorpe. 

“ S’pose you make me!” challenged the man in- 
solently. 

In a moment the defiance had come, endangering the 
careful structure Thorpe had reared with such pains. 
The young man was suddenly angry in exactly the 
same blind, unreasoning manner as when he had 
leaped single-handed to tackle Dyer’s crew. 

Without a word he sprang across the shack, seized a 
two-bladed ax from the pile behind the door, swung it 
around his head and cast it full at the now frightened 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


219 

teamster. The latter dodged, and the swirling steel 
buried itself in the snowbank beyond. Without an in- 
stant’s hesitation Thorpe reached back for another. 
The man took to his heels. 

“I don’t want to see you around here again!” 
shouted Thorpe after him. 

Then in a moment he returned to the office and sat 
down overcome with contrition. 

“ It might have been murder! ” he told himself, awe- 
stricken. 

But, as it happened, nothing could have turned out 
better. 

Thorpe had instinctively seized the only method by 
which these strong men could be impressed. A rough- 
and-tumble attempt at ejectment would have been use- 
less. Now the entire crew looked with vast admiration 
on their boss' as a man who intended to have his own 
way no matter what difficulties or consequences might 
tend to deter him. And that is the kind of man they 
liked.' This one deed was more effective in cementing 
their loyalty than any increase of wages would have 
been. 

Thorpe knew that their restless spirits would soon 
tire of the monotony of work without ultimate interest. 
Ordinarily the hope of a big cut is sufficient to keep men 
of the right sort working for a record. But these men 
had no such hope — the camp was too small, and they 
were too few. Thorpe adopted the expedient, now 
quite common, of posting the results of each day’s 
work in the men’s shanty. 

Three teams were engaged in travoying, and two in 
skidding the logs, either on the banking ground, or 
along the road. Thorpe divided his camp into four 
sections, which he distinguished by the names of the 
teamsters. Roughly speaking, each of the three haul- 
ing teams had its own gang of sawyers and skidders to 
supply it with logs and to take them from it, for of 


220 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


the skidding teams, one was split; — the horses were 
big enough so that one of them to a skidway sufficed. 
Thus three gangs of men were performing each day 
practically the same work. Thorpe scaled the results, 
and placed them conspicuously for comparison. 

Red Jacket, the teamster of the sorrels, one day was 
credited with 11,000 feet; while Long Pine Jim and 
Rollway Charley had put in but 10,500 and 10,250 re- 
spectively. That evening all the sawyers, swampers, 
and skidders belonging to Red Jacket’s outfit were 
•considerably elated; while the others said little and 
prepared for business on the morrow. 

Once Long Pine Jim lurked at the bottom for three 
days. Thorpe happened by the skidway just as Long 
Pine arrived with a log. The young fellow glanced 
solicitously at the splendid buckskins, the best horses 
in camp. 

“ Pm afraid I didn’t give you a very good team, 
Jimmy,” said he, and passed on. 

That was all ; but men of the rival gangs had heard. 
In camp Long Pine Jim and his crew received chaffing 
with balefully red glares. Next day they stood at the 
top by a good margin, and always after were com- 
petitors to be feared. 

Injin Charley, silent and enigmatical as ever, had 
constructed a log shack near a little creek over in the 
hardwood. There he attended diligently to the busi- 
ness of trapping. Thorpe had brought him a deer 
knife from Detroit; a beautiful instrument made of the 
best tool steel, in one long piece extending through 
the buck-horn handle. One could even break bones 
with it. He had also lent the Indian the assistance of 
two of his Marquette men in erecting the shanty; and 
had given him a barrel of flour for the winter. From 
time to time Injin Charley brought in fresh meat, for 
which he was paid. This with his trapping, and his 
manufacture of moccasins, snowshoes and birch canoes, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


221 


made him a very prosperous Indian indeed. Thorpe 
rarely found time to visit him, but he often glided into 
the office, smoked a pipeful of the white man’s tobacco 
in friendly fashion by the stove, and glided out again 
without having spoken a dozen words. 

Wallace made one visit before the big snows came, 
and was charmed. He ate with gusto of the “ salt- 
horse,” baked beans, stewed prunes, mince pie, and 
cakes. He tramped around gaily in his moccasins or 
on the fancy snowshoes he promptly purchased of Injin 
Charley. There was nothing new to report in regard 
to financial matters. The loan had been negotiated 
easily on the basis of a mortgage guaranteed by Car- 
penter’s personal signature. Nothing had been heard 
from Morrison & Daly. 

When he departed, he left behind him four little 
long-eared, short-legged beagle hounds. They were 
solemn animals, who took life seriously. Never a 
smile appeared in their questioning eyes. Wherever 
one went, the others followed, pattering gravely along 
in serried ranks. Soon they discovered that the swamp 
over the knoll contained big white hares. Their mis- 
sion in life was evident. Thereafter from the earliest 
peep of daylight until the men quit work at night they 
chased rabbits. The quest was hopeless, but they kept 
obstinately at it, wallowing with contained excite- 
ment over a hundred paces of snow before they would 
get near enough to scare their quarry to another jump. 
It used to amuse the hares. All day long the mellow 
bell-tones echoed over the knoll. It came in time to 
be part of the color of the camp, just as were the pines 
and birches, or the cold northern sky. At the fall of 
night, exhausted, trailing their long ears almost to the 
ground, they returned to the cook, who fed them and 
made much- of them. Next morning they were at it as 
hard as ever. To them it was the quest for the Grail, 
— hopeless, but glorious. 


222 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


Little Phil, entrusted with the alarm clock, was the 
first up in the morning. In the fearful biting cold of 
an extinct camp, he lighted his lantern and with numb 
hands raked the ashes from the stove. A few sticks of 
dried pine topped by split wood of birch or maple, all 
well dashed with kerosene, took the flame eagerly. 
Then he awakened the cook, and stole silently into the 
office, where Thorpe and Shearer and Andrews, the 
surveyor, lay asleep. There quietly he built another 
fire, and filled the water-pail afresh. By the time this 
task was finished, the cook sounded many times a 
conch, and the sleeping camp awoke. 

Later Phil drew water for the other shanties, swept 
out all three, split wood and carried it in to the cook 
and to the living-camps, filled and trimmed the lamps, 
perhaps helped the cook. About half the remainder 
of the day he wielded an ax, saw and wedge in the 
hardwood, collecting painfully — for his strength was 
not great — material for the constant fires it was his 
duty to maintain. Often he would stand motionless in 
the vast frozen, creaking forest, listening with awe to 
the voices which spoke to him alone. There was some- 
thing uncanny in the misshapen dwarf with the fixed 
marble white face and the expressive changing eyes, — 
something uncanny, and something indefinably beau- 
tiful. 

He seemed to possess an instinct which warned him 
of the approach of wild animals. Long before a white 
man, or even an Indian, would have suspected the 
presence of game, little Phil would lift his head with 
a peculiar listening toss. Soon, stepping daintily 
through the snow near the swamp edge, would come 
a deer; or pat-apat-patting on his broad hairy paws, a 
lynx would steal by. Except Injin Charley, Phil was 
the only man in that country who ever saw a beaver 
in the open daylight. 

At camp sometimes when all the men were away 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


223 

and his own work was done, he would crouch like a 
raccoon in the far corner of his deep square bunk with 
the board ends that made of it a sort of little cabin, 
and play to himself softly on his violin. No one ever 
heard him. After supper he was docilely ready to fid- 
dle to the men’s dancing. Always then he gradually 
worked himself to a certain pitch of excitement. His 
eyes glared with the wolf-gleam, and the music was 
vulgarly atrocious and out of tune. 

As Christmas drew near, the weather increased in 
severity. Blinding snow-squalls swept whirling from 
the northeast, accompanied by a high wind. The air 
was full of it, — fine, dry, powdery, like the dust of 
glass. The men worked covered with it as a tree is 
covered after a sleet. Sometimes it was impossible 
to work at all for hours at a time; but Thorpe did not 
allow a bad morning to spoil a good afternoon. The 
instant a lull fell on the storm, he was out with his 
scaling rule, and he expected the men to give him 
something to scale. He grappled the fierce winter by 
the throat, and shook from it the price of success. 

Then came a succession of bright cold days and clear 
cold nights. The aurora gleamed so brilliantly that 
the forest was as bright as by moonlight. In the 
strange weird shadow cast by its waverings the wolves 
stole silently, or broke into wild ululations as they 
struck the trail of game. Except for these weird in- 
vaders, the silence of death fell on the wilderness. 
Deer left the country. Partridges crouched trailing 
under the snow. All the weak and timid creatures of 
the woods shrank into concealment and silence before 
these fierce woods-marauders with the glaring famine- 
struck eyes. 

Injin Charley found his traps robbed. In return he 
constructed deadfalls, and dried several scalps. When 
spring came, he would send them out for the bounty. 
In the night, from time to time, the horses would 


224 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


awake trembling at an unknown terror. Then the long 
weird howl would shiver across the starlight near at 
hand, and the chattering man who rose hastily to quiet 
the horses’ frantic kicking, would catch a glimpse of 
gaunt forms skirting the edge of the forest. 

And the little beagles were disconsolate, for their 
quarry had fled. In place of the fan-shaped triangular 
trail for which they sought, they came upon dog-like 
prints. These they sniffed at curiously, and then de- 
parted growling, the hair on their backbones erect and 
stiff. 


Chapter XXXII 

the end of the winter some four million feet 
#^of logs were piled in the bed or upon the banks 
U of the stream. To understand what that means, 
you must imagine a pile of solid timber a mile in length. 
This tremendous mass lay directly in the course of the 
stream. When the winter broke up, it had to be sepa- 
rated and floated piecemeal down the current. The 
process is an interesting and dangerous one, and one 
of great delicacy. It requires for its successful com- 
pletion picked men of skill, and demands as toll its 
yearly quota of cripples and dead. While on the drive, 
men work fourteen hours a day, up to their waists in 
water filled with floating ice. 

On the Ossawinamakee, as has been stated, three 
dams had been erected to simplify the process of driv- 
ing. When the logs were in right distribution, the 
gates were raised, and the proper head of water floated 
them down. 

Now the river being navigable, Thorpe was possessed 
of certain rights on it. Technically he was entitled to 
a normal head of water, whenever he needed it; or a 
special head, according to agreement with the parties 
owning the dam. Early in the drive, he found that 
Morrison & Daly intended to cause him trouble. It 
began in a narrows of the river between high, rocky 
banks. Thorpe’s drive was floating through close- 
packed. The situation was ticklish. Men with spiked 
boots ran here and there from one bobbing log to 
another, pushing with their peaveys, hurrying one log, 
225 


226 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


retarding another, working like beavers to keep the 
whole mass straight. The entire surface of the water 
was practically covered with the floating timbers. A 
moment’s reflection will show the importance of pre- 
serving a full head of water. The moment the stream 
should drop an inch or so, its surface would contract, 
the logs would then be drawn close together in the 
narrow space; and, unless an immediate rise should lift 
them up and apart from each other, a jam would form, 
behind which the water, rapidly damming, would press 
to entangle it the more. 

This is exactly what happened. In a moment, as 
though by magic, the loose wooden carpet ground 
together. A log in the advance up-ended ; another 
thrust under it. The whole mass ground together, 
stopped, and began rapidly to pile up. The men 
escaped to the shore in a marvellous manner of their 
own. 

Tim Shearer found that the gate at the dam above 
had been closed. The man in charge had simply 
obeyed orders. He supposed M. & D.‘ wished to back 
up the water for their own logs. 

Tim indulged in some picturesque language. 

“ You ain’t got no right to close off more’n enough 
to leave us th’ nat’ral flow unless by agreement,” he 
concluded, and opened the gates. 

Then it was a question of breaking the jam. This 
had to be done by pulling out or chopping through 
certain “ key ” logs which locked the whole mass. 
Men stood under the face of imminent ruin — over 
them a frowning sheer wall of bristling logs, behind 
which pressed the weight of the rising waters — and 
hacked and tugged calmly until the mass began to 
stir. Then they escaped. A moment later, with a roar, 
the jam vomited down on the spot where they had 
stood. It was dangerous work. Just one half day later 
it had to be done again, and for the same reason. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


227 

This time Thorpe went back with Shearer. No one 
was at the dam, but the gates were closed. The two 
opened them again. 

That very evening a man rode up on horseback in- 
quiring for Mr. Thorpe. 

“ I’m he,” said the young fellow. 

The man thereupon dismounted and served a paper. 
It proved to be an injunction issued by Judge Sherman 
enjoining Thorpe against interfering with the prop- 
erty of Morrisdn & Daly, — to wit, certain dams 
erected at designated points on the Ossawinamakee. 
There had not elapsed sufficient time since the com- 
mission of the offense for the other firm to secure the 
issuance of this interesting document, so it was at 
once evident that the whole affair had been pre- 
arranged by the up-river firm for the purpose of block- 
ing off Thorpe’s drive. After serving the injunction, 
the official rode away. 

Thorpe called his foreman. The latter read the in- 
junction attentively through a pair of steel-bowed 
spectacles. 

“ Well, what you going to do? ” he asked. 

“Of all the consummate gall!” exploded Thorpe. 
“ Trying to enjoin me from touching a dam when 
they’re refusing me the natural flow! They must have 
bribed that fool judge. Why, his injunction isn’t 
worth the powder to blow it up! ” 

“ Then you’re all right, ain’t ye? ” inquired Tim. 

“ It’ll be the middle of summer before we get a 
hearing in court,” said he. “ Oh, they’re a cute lay- 
out! They expect to hang me up until it’s too late to 
do anything with the season’s cut! ” 

He arose and began to pace back and forth. 

“ Tim,” said he, “ is there a man in the crew who’s 
afraid of nothing and will obey orders? ” 

“ A dozen,” replied Tim promptly. 

“ Who’s the best? ” 


228 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ Scotty Parsons.” 

“ Ask him to step here.” 

In a moment the man entered the office. 

“ Scotty,” said Thorpe, “ I want you to understand 
that I stand responsible for whatever I order you to do.” 

“ All right, sir,” replied the man. 

“ In the morning,” said Thorpe, “ you take two men 
and build some sort of a shack right over the sluice- 
gate of that second dam, — nothing very fancy, but 
good enough to camp in. I want you to live there 
day and night. Never leave it, not even for a minute. 
The cookee will bring you grub. Take this Winches- 
ter. If any of the men from up-river try to go out on 
the dam, you warn them off. If they persist, you shoot 
near them. If they keep coming, you shoot at them. 
Understand? ” 

“ You bet,” answered Scotty with enthusiasm. 

“ All right,” concluded Thorpe. 

Next day Scotty established himself, as had been 
agreed. He did not need to shoot anybody. Daly 
himself came down to investigate the state of affairs, 
when his men reported to him the occupancy of the 
dam. He attempted to parley, but Scotty would have 
none of it. 

“ Get out! ” was his first and last word. 

Daly knew men. He was at the wrong end of the 
whip. Thorpe’s game was desperate, but so was his 
need, and this was a backwoods country a long ways 
from the little technicalities of the law. It was one 
thing to serve an injunction; another to enforce it. 
Thorpe finished his drive with no more of the difficul- 
ties than ordinarily bother a riverman. 

At the mouth of the river, booms of logs chained 
together at the ends had been prepared. Into the 
enclosure the drive was floated and stopped. Then a 
raft was formed by passing new manila ropes over the 
logs, to each one of which the line was fastened by 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


229 

a hardwood forked pin driven astride of it. A tug 
dragged the raft to Marquette. 

Now Thorpe was summoned legally on two counts. 
First, Judge Sherman cited him for contempt of court. 
Second, Morrison & Daly sued him for alleged dam- 
ages in obstructing their drive by holding open the 
dam-sluice beyond the legal head of water. 

Such is a brief but true account of the coup-de-force 
actually carried out by Thorpe’s lumbering firm in 
northern Michigan. It is better known to the craft 
than to the public at large, because eventually the affair 
was compromised. The manner of that compromise is 
to follow. 


Chapter XXXIII 

TRENDING the call of trial, Thorpe took a three 
weeks’ vacation to visit his sister. Time, filled 
X with excitement and responsibility, had erased 
from his mind the bitterness of their parting. He had 
before been too busy, too grimly in earnest, to allow 
himself the luxury of anticipation. Now he found 
himself so impatient that he could hardly wait to get 
there. He pictured their meeting, the things they 
would say to each other. 

As formerly, he learned on his arrival that she was 
not at home. It was the penalty of an attempted sur- 
prise. Mrs. Renwick proved not nearly so cordial as 
the year before; but Thorpe, absorbed in his eagerness, 
did not notice ‘it. If he had, he might have guessed 
the truth: that the long propinquity of the fine and the 
commonplace, however safe at first from the insulation 
of breeding and natural kindliness, was at last begin- 
ning to generate sparks. 

No, Mrs. Renwick did not know where Helen was: 
thought she had gone over to the Hughes’s. The 
Hughes live two blocks down the street and three to 
the right, in a brown house back from the street. 
Very well, then; she would expect Mr. Thorpe to 
spend the night. 

The latter wandered slowly down the charming 
driveways of the little western town. The broad dusty 
street was brown with sprinkling from numberless 
garden hose. A double row of big soft maples met 
over it, and shaded the sidewalk and part of the wide 
lawns. The grass was fresh and green. Houses with 
capacious verandas on which were glimpsed easy 
230 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


231 

chairs and hammocks, sent forth a mild glow from a 
silk-shaded lamp or two. Across the evening air 
floated the sounds of light conversation and laughter 
from these verandas, the tinkle of a banjo, the thrum 
of a guitar. Automatic sprinklers whirled and hummed 
here and there. Their delicious artificial coolness 
struck refreshingly against the cheek. 

Thorpe found the Hughes residence without diffi- 
culty, and turned up the straight walk to the veranda. 
On the steps of the latter a rug had been spread. 
A dozen youths and maidens lounged in well-bred ease 
on its soft surface. The gleam of white summer 
dresses, of variegated outing clothes, the rustle of 
frocks, the tinkle of low, well-bred laughter confused 
Thorpe, so that, as he approached the light from a tall 
lamp just inside the hall, he hesitated, vainly trying to 
make out the figures before him. 

So it was that Helen Thorpe saw him first, and came 
fluttering to meet him. 

“Oh, Harry! What a surprise!” she cried, and 
flung her arms about his neck to kiss him. 

“ How do you do, Helen,” he replied sedately. 

This was the meeting he had anticipated so long. 
The presence of others brought out in him, irresistibly, 
the repression of public display which was so strong 
an element of his character. 

A little chilled, Helen turned to introduce him to her 
friends. In the cold light of her commonplace recep- 
tion she noticed what in a warmer effusion of feelings 
she would never have seen, — that her brother’s clothes 
were out of date and worn; and that, though his car- 
riage was notably strong and graceful, the trifling 
constraint and dignity of his younger days had become 
almost an awkwardness after two years among uncul- 
tivated men. It occurred to Helen to be just a little 
ashamed of him. 

He took a place on the steps and sat without saying 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


232 

a word all the evening. There was nothing for him 
to say. These young people talked thoughtlessly, as 
young people do, of the affairs belonging to their own 
little circle. Thorpe knew nothing of the cotillion, or 
the brake ride, or of the girl who visited Alice Souther- 
land; all of which gave occasion for so much lively 
comment. Nor was the situation improved when some 
of them, in a noble effort at politeness, turned the con- 
versation into more general channels. The topics of 
the day’s light talk were absolutely unknown to him. 
The plays, the new books, the latest popular songs, 
jokes depending for their point -on an intimate knowl- 
edge of the prevailing vaudeville mode, were as un- 
familiar to him as Miss Alice Southerland’s guest. He 
had thought pine and forest and the trail so long, that 
he found these square-elbowed subjects refusing to be 
jostled aside by any trivialities. 

So he sat there silent in the semi-darkness. This 
man, whose lightest experience would have aroused the 
eager attention of the entire party, held his peace 
because he thought he had nothing to say. 

He took Helen back to Mrs. Renwick’s about ten 
o’clock. They walked slowly beneath the broad- 
leaved maples, whose shadows danced under the tall 
electric lights, — and talked. 

Helen was an affectionate, warm-hearted girl. Or- 
dinarily she would have been blind to everything 
except the delight of having her brother once more 
with her. But his apparently cold reception had first 
chilled, then thrown her violently into a critical mood. 
His subsequent social inadequacy had settled her into 
the common-sense level of everyday life. 

“ How have you done, Harry ? ” she inquired anx- 
iously. “ Your letters have been so vague.” 

“ Pretty well,” he replied. “ If things go right, I 
hope some day to have a better place for you than 
this.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 33 

Her heart contracted suddenly. It was all she could 
do to keep from bursting into tears. One would have 
to realize perfectly her youth, the life to which she had 
been accustomed, the lack of encouragement she had 
labored under, the distastefulness of her surroundings, 
the pent-up dogged patience she had displayed during 
the last two years, the hopeless feeling of battering 
against a brick wall she always experienced when she 
received the replies to her attempts on Harry’s confi- 
dence, to appreciate how the indefiniteness of his 
answer exasperated her and filled her with sullen de- 
spair. She said nothing for twenty steps. Then : 

“ Harry,” she said quietly, “ can’t you take me away 
from Mrs. Renwick’s this year? ” 

“ I don’t know, Helen. I can’t tell yet. Not just 
now, at any rate.” 

“ Harry,” she cried, “ you don’t know what you’re 
doing. I tell you I can’t stand Mrs. Renwick any 
longer.” She calmed herself with an effort, and went 
on more quietly. “ Really, Harry, she’s awfully dis- 
agreeable. If you can’t afford to keep me anywhere 
else — ” she glanced timidly at his face and for the 
first time saw the strong lines about the jaw and the 
tiny furrows between the eyebrows. “ I know you’ve 
worked hard, Harry dear,” she said with a sudden sym- 
pathy, “ and that you’d give me more, if you could. 
But so have I worked hard. Now we ought to change 
this in some way. I can get a position as teacher, or 
some other work somewhere. Won’t you let me do 
that?” 

Thorpe was thinking that it would be easy enough 
to obtain Wallace Carpenter’s consent to his taking 
a thousand dollars from the profits of the year. But 
he knew also that the struggle in the courts might need 
every cent the new company could spare. It would 
look much better were he to wait until after the ver- 
dict. If favorable, there would be no difficulty about 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 34 

sparing the money. If adverse, there would be no 
money to spare. The latter contingency he did not 
seriously anticipate, but still it had to be considered. 
And so, until the thing was absolutely certain, he hesi- 
tated to explain the situation to Helen for fear of dis- 
appointing her! 

“ I think you’d better wait, Helen,” said he. 
“ There’ll be time enough for all that later when it be- 
comes necessary. You are very young yet, and it will 
not hurt you a bit to continue your education for a lit- 
tle while longer.” 

“ And in the meantime stay with Mrs. Renwick ? ” 
flashed Helen. 

“ Yes. I hope it will not have to be for very long.” 

“ How long do you think, Harry ? ” pleaded the 
girl. 

“ That depends on circumstances,” replied Thorpe. 

“ Oh ! ” she cried indignantly. 

“ Harry,” she ventured after a time, “ why not write 
to Uncle Amos? ” 

Thorpe stopped and looked at her searchingly. 

“ You can’t mean that, Helen,” he said, drawing a 
long breath. 

“But why not?” she persisted. 

“ You ought to know.” 

“ Who would have done any different? If you had 
a brother and discovered that he had — appropriated 
— most all the money of a concern of which you were 
president, wouldn’t you think it your duty to have him 
arrested ? ” 

“ No ! ” cried Thorpe suddenly excited. “ Never ! 
If he was my brother, I’d help him, even if he’d com- 
mitted murder ! ” 

< “ We differ there,” replied the girl coldly. “ I con- 
sider that Uncle Amos was a strong man who did his 
duty as he saw it, in spite of his feelings. That he had 
father arrested is nothing against him in my eyes. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


235 

And his wanting us to come to him since, seems to 
me very generous. I am going to write to him. ,, 

“ You will do nothing of the kind,” commanded 
Thorpe sternly. “ Amos Thorpe is an unscrupulous 
man who became unscrupulously rich. He deliber- 
ately used our father as a tool, and then destroyed him. 
I consider that anyone of our family who would have 
anything to do with him is a traitor ! ” 

The girl did not reply. 

Next morning Thorpe felt uneasily repentant for his 
strong language. After all, the girl did lead a monot- 
onous life, and he could not blame her for rebelling 
against it from time to time. Her remarks had been 
born of the rebellion ; they had meant nothing in them- 
selves. He could not doubt for a moment her loyalty 
to the family. 

But he did not tell her so. That is not the way of 
men of his stamp. Rather he cast about to see what 
he could do. 

Injin Charley had, during the winter just past, occu- 
pied odd moments in embroidering with beads and 
porcupine quills a wonderful outfit of soft buckskin 
gauntlets, a shirt of the same material, and moccasins 
of moose-hide. They were beautifully worked, and 
Thorpe, on receiving them, had at once conceived the 
idea of giving them to his sister. To this end he had 
consulted another Indian near Marquette, to whom he 
had confided the task of reducing the gloves and moc- 
casins. The shirt would do as it was, for it was in- 
tended to be worn as a sort of belted blouse. As has 
been said, all were thickly beaded, and represented a 
vast quantity of work. Probably fifty dollars could 
not have bought them, even in the north country. 

Thorpe tendered this as a peace offering. Not 
understanding women in the least, he was surprised to 
see his gift received by a burst of tears and a sudden 
exit from the room. Helen thought he had bought 


236 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

the things ; and she was still sore from the pinch of 
the poverty she had touched the evening before. 
Nothing will exasperate a woman more than to be pre- 
sented with something expensive for which she does 
not particularly care, after being denied, on the 
ground of economy, something she wants very much. 

Thorpe stared after her in hurt astonishment. Mrs. 
Renwick sniffed. 

That afternoon the latter estimable lady attempted 
to reprove Miss Helen, and was snubbed; she per- 
sisted, and an open quarrel ensued. 

“ I will not be dictated to by you, Mrs. Renwick/’ 
said Helen, “ and I don’t intend to have you interfere 
in any way with my family affairs.” 

“ They won’t stand much investigation,” replied 
Mrs. Renwick, goaded out of her placidity. 

Thorpe entered to hear the last two speeches. He 
said nothing, but that night he wrote to Wallace Car- 
penter for a thousand dollars. Every stroke of the 
pen hurt him. But of course Helen could not stay 
here now. 

“ And to think, just to think that he let that woman 
insult me so, and didn’t say a word ! ” cried Helen to 
herself. 

Her method would have been to have acted irrevo- 
cably on the spot, and sought ways and means after- 
wards. Thorpe’s, however, was to perfect all his plans 
before making the first step. 

Wallace Carpenter was not in town. Before the 
letter had followed him to his new address, and the 
answer had returned, a week had passed. Of course 
the money was gladly put at Thorpe’s disposal. The 
latter at once interviewed his sister. 

“ Helen,” he said, “ I have made arrangements for 
some money. What would you like to do this year? ” 

She raised her head and looked at him with clear 
bright gaze. If he could so easily raise the money, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 37 


why had he not done so before? He knew how much 
she wanted it. Her happiness did not count. Only 
when his quixotic ideas of family honor were attacked 
did he bestir himself. 

“ I am going to Uncle Amos’s,” she replied distinctly. 

“ What ? ” asked Thorpe incredulously. 

For answer she pointed to a letter lying open on the 
table. Thorpe took it and read: 

“ My dear Niece : 

“ Both Mrs. Thorpe and myself more than rejoice 
that time and reflection have removed that, I must 
confess, natural prejudice which the unfortunate fam- 
ily affair, to which I will not allude, raised in your 
mind against us. As we said long ago, our home is 
your’s when you may wish to make it so. You state 
your present readiness to come immediately. Unless 
you wire to the contrary, we shall expect you next 
Tuesday evening on the fouriforty train. I shall be 
at the Central Station myself to meet you. If your 
brother is now with you, I should be pleased to see 
him also, and will be most happy to give him a posi- 
tion with the firm. 

“ Aff. your uncle, 

“Amos Thorpe. 

“ New York, June 6, 1883.” 

On finishing the last paragraph the reader crumpled 
the letter and threw it into the grate. 

“ I am sorry you did that, Helen,” said he, “ but I 
j don’t blame you, and it can’t be helped. We won’t 
need to take advantage of his ‘ kind offer ’ now.” 

“ I intend to do so, however,” replied the girl coldly. 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ I mean,” she cried, “ that I am sick of waiting on 
your good pleasure. I waited, and slaved, and stood 
unbearable things for two years. I did it cheerfully. 


238 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

And in return I don’t get a civil word, not a decent 
explanation, not even a — caress,” she fairly sobbed 
out the last word. “ I can’t stand it any longer. 
I have tried and tried and tried, and then when I’ve 
come to you for the littlest word of encouragement, 
you have pecked at me with those stingy little kisses, 
and have told me I was young and ought to finish my 
education ! You put me in uncongenial surround- 
ings, and go off into the woods camping yourself. 
You refuse me money enough to live in a three-dollar 
boarding-house, and you buy expensive rifles and fish- 
ing tackle for yourself. You can’t afford to send me 
away somewhere for the summer, but you bring me 
back gee-gaws you have happened to fancy, worth a 
month’s board in the country. You haven’t a cent 
when it is a question of what I want ; but you raise 
money quick enough when your old family is insulted. 
Isn’t it my family too ? And then you blame me be- 
cause, after waiting in vain two years for you to do 
something, I start out to do the best I can for myself. 
I’m not of age ; but you’re not my guardian ! ” 

During this long speech Thorpe had stood motion- 
less, growing paler and paler. Like most noble nat- 
ures, when absolutely in the right, he was incapable 
of defending himself against misunderstandings. He 
was too wounded ; he was hurt to the soul. 

“ You know that is not true, Helen,” he replied, al- 
most sternly. 

“ It is true! ” she asseverated, “ and I’m through! ” 
“ It’s a little hard,” said Thorpe passing his hand 
wearily before his eyes, “ to work hard this way for 

years, and then ” 

She laughed with a hard little note of scorn. 

“ Helen,” said Thorpe with new energy, “ I forbid 
you to have anything to do with Amos Thorpe. I 
think he is a scoundrel and a sneak.” 

“ What grounds have you to think so ? ” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 39 

“ None,” he confessed, “ that is, nothing definite. 
But I know men ; and I know his type. Some day I 
shall be able to prove something. I do not wish you 
to have anything to do with him.” 

“ I shall do as I please,” she replied, crossing her 
hands behind her. 

Thorpe’s eyes darkened. 

“ We have talked this over a great many times,” he 
warned, “and you’ve always agreed with me. Re- 
member, you owe something to the family.” 

“ Most of the family seem to owe something,” she 
replied with a flippant laugh. “ I’m sure I didn’t 
choose the family. If I had, I’d have picked out a 
better one ! ” 

The flippancy was only a weapon which she used 
unconsciously, blindly, in her struggle. The man 
could not know this. His face hardened, and his 
voice grew cold. 

“ You may take your choice, Helen,” he said for- 
mally. “ If you go into the household of Amos 
Thorpe, if you deliberately prefer your comfort to your 
honor, we will have nothing more in common.” 

They faced each other with the cool, deadly glance 
of the race, so similar in appearance but so unlike in 
nature. 

“ I, too, offer you a home, such as it is,” repeated 
the man. “ Choose ! ” 

At the mention of the home for which means were 
so quickly forthcoming when Thorpe, not she, consid- 
ered it needful, the girl’s eyes flashed. She stooped 
and dragged violently from beneath the bed a flat 
steamer trunk, the lid of which she threw open. A 
dress lay on the bed. With a fine dramatic gesture 
she folded the garment and laid it in the bottom of the 
trunk. Then she knelt, and without vouchsafing an- 
other glance at her brother standing rigid by the door, 
she began feverishly to arrange the folds. 

The choice was made. He turned and went out. 


Chapter XXXIV 



ITH Thorpe there could be no half-way 
measure. He saw that the rupture with his 
sister was final, and the thrust attained him 


in one of his few unprotected points. It was not as 
though he felt either himself or his sister consciously in 
the wrong. He acquitted her of all fault, except as to 
the deadly one of misreading and misunderstanding. 
The fact argued not a perversion but a lack in her char- 
acter. She was other than he had thought her. 

As for himself, he had schemed, worked, lived only 
for her. He had come to her from the battle expect- 
ing rest and refreshment. To the world he had shown 
the hard, unyielding front of the unemotional ; he had 
looked ever keenly outward ; he had braced his muscles 
in the constant tension of endeavor. So much the 
more reason why, in the hearts of the few he loved, he, 
the man of action, should find repose ; the man of 
sternness, should discover that absolute peace of the 
spirit in which not the slightest motion of the will 
is necessary; the man of repression should be per- 
mitted affectionate, care-free expansion of the natural 
affection, of the full sympathy which will understand 
and not mistake for weakness. Instead of this, he 
was forced into refusing where he would rather have 
given ; into denying where he would rather have as- 
sented ; and finally into commanding where he longed 
most ardently to lay aside the cloak of authority. His 
motives were misread; his intentions misjudged; his 
love doubted. 

But worst of all, Thorpe’s mind could see no possi- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


241 

bility of an explanation. If she could not see of her 
own accord how much he loved her, surely it was a 
hopeless task to attempt an explanation through mere 
words. If, after all, she was capable of misconceiving 
the entire set of his motives during the past two years, 
expostulation would be futile. In his thoughts of her 
he fell into a great spiritual dumbness. Never, even 
in his moments of most theoretical imaginings, did 
he see himself setting before her fully and calmly the 
hopes and ambitions of which she had been the main- 
spring. And before a reconciliation, many such re- 
hearsals must take place in the secret recesses of a 
man’s being. 

Thorpe did not cry out, nor confide in a friend, nor 
do anything even so mild as pacing the floor. The 
only outward and visible sign a close observer might 
have noted was a certain dumb pain lurking in the 
depths of his eyes like those of a wounded spaniel. 
He was hurt, but did not understand. He suffered in 
silence, but without anger. This is at once the noblest 
and the most pathetic of human suffering. 

At first the spring of his life seemed broken. He 
did not care for money ; and at present disappointment 
had numbed his interest in the game. It seemed 
hardly worth the candle. 

Then in a few days, after his thoughts had ceased to 
dwell constantly on the one subject, he began to look 
about him mentally. Beneath his other interests he 
still felt constantly a dull ache, something unpleasant, 
uncomfortable. Strangely enough it was almost iden- 
tical in quality with the uneasiness that always under- 
lay his surface-thoughts when he was worried about 
some detail of his business. Unconsciously, — again 
as in his business, — the combative instinct aroused. 
In lack of other object on which to expend itself, 
Thorpe’s fighting spirit turned with energy to the 
subject of the lawsuit. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


242 

Under the unwonted stress of the psychological con- 
dition just described, he thought at white heat. His 
ideas were clear, and followed each other quickly, 
almost feverishly. 

After his sister left the Renwicks, Thorpe himself 
went to Detroit, where he interviewed at once Nor- 
throp, the brilliant young lawyer whom the firm had 
engaged to defend its case. 

“ I’m afraid we have no show,” he replied to 
Thorpe’s question. “ You see, you fellows were on 
the wrong side of the fence in trying to enforce the 
law yourselves. Of course you may well say that 
justice was all on your side. That does not count. 
The only recourse recognized for injustice lies in the 
law courts. I’m afraid you are due to lose your case.” 

“ Well,” said Thorpe, “ they can’t prove much 
damage.” 

“ I don’t expect that they will be able to procure a 
very heavy judgment,” replied Northrop. “ The facts 
I shall be able to adduce will cut down damages. But 
the costs will be very heavy.” 

“ Yes,” agreed Thorpe. 

“ And,” then pursued Northrop with a dry smile, 
“they practically own Sherman. You may be in for 
contempt of court — at their instigation. As I under- 
stand it, they are trying rather to injure you than to 
get anything out of it themselves.” 

“ That’s it,” nodded Thorpe. 

“ In other words, it’s a case for compromise.” 

“ Just what I wanted to get at,” said Thorpe with 
satisfaction. “ Now answer me a question. Suppose 
a man injures Government or State land by trespass. 
The land is afterwards bought by another party. Has 
the latter any claim for damage against the trespasser ? 
Understand me, the purchaser bought after the tres- 
pass was committed.” 

“ Certainly,” answered Northrop without hesitation. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


243 

“ Provided suit is brought within six years of the time 
the trespass was committed. ,, 

“Good! Now see here. These M. & D. people 
stole about a section of Government pine up on that 
river, and I don’t believe they’ve ever bought in the 
land it stood on. In fact I don’t believe they suspect 
that anyone knows they’ve been stealing. How would 
it do, if I were to buy that section at the Land Office, 
and threaten to sue them for the value of the pine that 
originally stood on it ? ” 

The lawyer’s eyes glimmered behind the lenses of 
his pince-nez ; but, with the caution of the professional 
man he made no other sign of satisfaction. 

“ It would do very well indeed,” he replied, “ but 
you’d have to prove they did the cutting, and you’ll 
have to pay experts to estimate the probable amount 
of the timber. Have you the description of the sec- 
tion ? ” 

“ No,” responded Thorpe, “ but I can get it ; and I 
can pick up witnesses from the woodsmen as to the 
cutting.” 

“ The more the better. It is rather easy to discredit 
the testimony of one or two. How much, on a broad 
guess, would you estimate the timber to come to ? ” 

“ There ought to be about eight or ten million,” 
guessed Thorpe after an instant’s silence, “ worth in 
the stump anywhere from sixteen to twenty thousand 
dollars. It would cost me only eight hundred to 
buy it.” 

“ Do so, by all means. Get your documents and 
evidence ali in shape, and let me have them. I’ll see 
that the suit is discontinued then. Will you sue 
them?” 

“ No, I think not,” replied Thorpe. “ I’ll just hold 
it back as a sort of club to keep them in line.” 

The next day, he took the train north. He had 
something definite and urgent to do, and, as always 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


244 

with practical affairs demanding attention and re- 
source, he threw himself whole-souled into the accom- 
plishment of it. By the time he had bought the six- 
teen forties constituting the section, searched out a 
dozen witnesses to the theft, and spent a week with the 
Marquette expert in looking over the ground, he had 
fallen into the swing of work again. His experience 
still ached ; but dully. 

Only now he possessed no interests outside of those 
in the new country ; no affections save the half-protect- 
ing, good-natured comradeship with Wallace, the 
mutual self-reliant respect that subsisted between Tim 
Shearer and himself, and the dumb, unreasoning dog- 
liking he shared with Injin Charley. His eye became 
clearer and steadier ; his methods more simple and di- 
rect. The taciturnity of his mood redoubled in thick- 
ness. He was less charitable to failure on the part 
of subordinates. And the new firm on the Ossawin- 
amakee prospered. 


Chapter XXXV 

77HVE years passed. 

In that time Thorpe had succeeded in cutting 
JL a hundred million feet of pine. The money re- 
ceived for this had all been turned back into the Com- 
pany’s funds. From a single camp of twenty-five men, 
with ten horses and a short haul of half a mile, the 
concern had increased to six large, well-equipped com- 
munities of eighty to a hundred men apiece, using 
nearly two hundred horses, and hauling as far as eight 
or nine miles. 

Near the port stood a mammoth sawmill capable 
of taking care of twenty-two million feet a year, about 
which a lumber town had sprung up. Lake schooners 
lay in a long row during the summer months, while 
busy loaders passed the planks from one to the other 
into the deep holds. Besides its original holding, the 
company had acquired about a hundred and fifty mill- 
ion more, back near the headwaters of tributaries to 
the Ossawinamakee. In the spring and early summer 
months, the drive was a wonderful affair. 

During the four years in which the Morrison & Daly 
Company shared the stream with Thorpe, the two 
firms lived in complete amity and understanding. 
Northrop had played his cards skillfully. The older 
capitalists had withdrawn suit. Afterwards they kept 
scrupulously within their rights, and saw to it that no 
more careless openings were left for Thorpe’s shrewd- 
ness. They were keen enough business men, but had 
made the mistake, common enough to established 
power, of underrating the strength of an appar- 
245 


246 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

ently insignificant opponent. Once they understood 
Thorpe’s capacity, that young man had no more 
chance to catch them napping. 

And as the younger man, on his side, never attempt- 
ed to overstep his own rights, the interests of the rival 
firms rarely clashed. As to the few disputes that did 
arise, Thorpe found Mr. Daly singularly anxious to 
please. In the desire was no friendliness, however. 
Thorpe was watchful for treachery, and could hardly 
believe the affair finished when at the end of the fourth 
year the M. & D. sold out the remainder of its pine to 
a firm from Manistee, and transferred its operations 
to another stream a few miles east, where it had ac- 
quired more considerable holdings. 

“ They’re altogether too confounded anxious to help 
us on that freight, Wallace,” said Thorpe wrinkling 
his brow uneasily. “ I don’t like it. It isn’t natural.” 

“ No,” laughed Wallace, “ neither is it natural for 
a dog to draw a sledge. But he does it — when he has 
to. They’re afraid of you, Harry: that’s all.” 

Thorpe shook his head, but had to acknowledge 
that he could evidence no grounds for his mistrust. 

The conversation took place at Camp One, which 
was celebrated in three states. Thorpe had set out 
to gather around him a band of good woodsmen. Ex- 
cept on a pinch he would employ no others. 

“ I don’t care if I get in only two thousand feet this 
winter, and if a boy does that,” he answered Shearer’s 
expostulations, “ it’s got to be a good boy.” 

The result of his policy began to show even in the 
second year. Men were a little proud to say that they 
had put in a winter at “ Thorpe’s One.” Those who 
had worked there during the first year were loyally en- 
thusiastic over their boss’s grit and resourcefulness, 
their camp’s order, their cook’s good “ grub.” As they 
were authorities, others perforce had to accept the dic- 
tum. There grew a desire among the better class to 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


247 


see what Thorpe’s “ One ” might be like. In the 
autumn Harry had more applicants than he knew what 
to do with. Eighteen of the old men returned. He 
took them all, but when it came to distribution, three 
found themselves assigned to one or the other of the 
new camps. And quietly the rumor gained that these 
three had shown the least willing spirit during the 
previous winter. The other fifteen were sobered to 
the industry which their importance as veterans might 
have impaired. 

Tim Shearer was foreman of Camp One; Scotty 
Parsons was drafted from the veterans to take charge 
of Two; Thorpe engaged two men known to Tim to 
boss Three and Four. But in selecting the “ push ” for 
Five he displayed most strikingly his keen apprecia- 
tion of a man’s relation to his environment. He 
sought out John Radway and induced him to accept 
the commission. 

“ You can do it, John,” said he, “ and I know it. I 
want you to try; and if you don’t make her go, I’ll call 
it nobody’s fault but my own.” 

“ I don’t see how you dare risk it, after that Cass 
Branch deal, Mr. Thorpe,” replied Radway, almost 
brokenly. “ But I would like to tackle it, I’m dead 
sick of loafing. Sometimes it seems like I’d die, if I 
don’t get out in the woods again.” 

“ We’ll call it a deal, then,” answered Thorpe. 

The result proved his sagacity. Radway was one 
of the best foremen in the outfit. He got more out 
of his men, he rose better to emergencies, and he ac- 
complished more with the same resources than any 
of the others, excepting Tim Shearer. As long as the 
work was done for someone else, he was capable and 
efficient. Only when he was called upon to demand 
on his own account, did the paralyzing shyness affect 
him. 

But the one feature that did more to attract the very 


248 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

best element among woodsmen, and so make possible 
the practice of Thorpe’s theory of success, was Camp 
One. The men’s accommodations at the other five 
were no different and but little better than those in a 
thousand other typical lumber camps of both penin- 
sulas. They slept in box-like bunks filled with hay or 
straw over which blankets were spread ; they sat on a 
narrow hard bench or on the floor ; they read by the 
dim light of a lamp fastened against the big cross 
beam; they warmed themselves at a huge iron stove 
in the center of the room around which suspended 
wires and poles offered space for the drying of socks ; 
they washed their clothes when the mood struck them. 
It was warm and comparatively clean. But it was 
dark, without ornament, cheerless. 

The lumber-jack never expects anything different. 
In fact, if he were pampered to the extent of ordinary 
comforts, he would be apt at once to conclude himself 
indispensable ; whereupon he would become worthless. 

Thorpe, however, spent a little money — not much 
— and transformed Camp One. Every bunk was pro- 
vided with a tick, which the men could fill with hay, 
balsam, or hemlock, as suited them. Cheap but at- 
tractive curtains on wires at once brightened the room 
and shut each man’s “ bedroom ” from the main hall. 
The deacon seat remained, but was supplemented by 
a half-dozen simple and comfortable chairs. In the 
center of the room stood a big round table over which 
glowed two hanging lamps. The table was littered 
with papers and magazines. Home life was still 
further suggested by a canary bird in a gilt cage, a 
sleepy cat, and two pots of red geraniums. Thorpe 
had further imported a washerwoman who dwelt in a 
separate little cabin under the hill. She washed the 
men’s belongings at twenty-five cents a week, which 
amount Thorpe deducted from each man’s wages, 
whether he had the washing done or not. This en- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


249 

couraged cleanliness. Phil scrubbed out every day, 
while the men were in the woods. 

Such was Thorpe’s famous Camp One in the days 
of its splendor. Old woodsmen will still tell you about 
it, with a longing reminiscent glimmer in the corners 
of their eyes as they recall its glories and the men who 
worked in it. To have “ put in ” a winter in Camp 
One was the mark of a master; and the ambition of 
every raw recruit to the forest. Probably Thorpe’s 
name is remembered to-day more on account of the 
intrepid, skillful, loyal men his strange genius gath- 
ered about it, than for the herculean feat of having 
carved a great fortune from the wilderness in but five 
years’ time. 

But Camp One was a privilege. A man entered it 
only after having proved himself; he remained in it 
only as long as his efficiency deserved the honor. Its 
members were invariably recruited from one of the 
other four camps ; never from applicants who had not 
been in Thorpe’s employ. A raw man was sent to 
Scotty, or Jack Hyland, or Radway, or Kerlie. There 
he was given a job, if he happened to suit, and men 
were needed. By and by, perhaps, when a member 
of Camp One fell sick or was given his time, Tim 
Shearer would send word to one of the other five that 
he needed an axman or a sawyer, or a loader, or team- 
ster, as the case might be. The best man in the other 
camps was sent up. 

So Shearer was foreman of a picked crew. Proba- 
bly no finer body of men was ever gathered at one 
camp. In them one could study at his best the Amer- 
ican pioneer. It was said at that time that you had 
never seen logging done as it should be until you had 
visited Thorpe’s Camp One on the Ossawinamakee. 

Of these men Thorpe demanded one thing — suc- 
cess. He tried never to ask of them anything he did 
not believe to be thoroughly possible ; but he expected 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


250 

always that in some manner, by hook or crook, they 
would carry the affair through. No matter how good 
the excuse, it was never accepted. Accidents would 
happen, there as elsewhere ; a way to arrive m spite of 
them always exists, if only a man is willing to use his 
wits, unflagging energy, and time. Bad luck is a real- 
ity ; but much of what is called bad luck is nothing but 
a want of careful foresight, and Thorpe could better 
afford to be harsh occasionally to the genuine for the 
sake of eliminating the false. If a man failed, he left 
Camp One. 

The procedure was very simple. Thorpe never ex- 
plained his reasons even to Shearer. 

“ Ask Tom to step in a moment,” he requested of 
the latter. 

“ Tom,” he said to that individual, “ I think I can 
use you better at Four. Report to Kerlie there.” 

And strangely enough, few even of these proud and 
independent men ever asked for their time, or pre- 
ferred to quit rather than to work up again to the 
glories of their prize camp. 

For while new recruits were never accepted at 
Camp One, neither was a man ever discharged there. 
He was merely transferred to one of the other fore- 
men. 

It is necessary to be thus minute in order that the 
reader may understand exactly the class of men 
Thorpe had about his immediate person. Some of 
them had the reputation of being the hardest citizens 
in three States, others were mild as turtle doves. 
They were all pioneers. They had the independence, 
the unabashed eye, the insubordination even, of the 
man who has drawn his intellectual and moral nour- 
ishment at the breast of a wild nature. They were 
afraid of nothing alive. From no one/ were he chore- 
boy or president, would they take a single word — 
with the exception always of Tim Shearer and Thorpe. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


251 

The former they respected because in their pictur- 
esque guild he was a master craftsman. The latter 
they adored and quoted and fought for in distant 
saloons, because he represented to them their own 
ideal, what they would be if freed from the heavy gyves 
of vice and executive incapacity that weighed them 
down. 

And they were loyal. It was a point of honor with 
them to stay “ until the last dog was hung.” He who 
deserted in the hour of need was not only a renegade, 
but a fool. For he thus earned a magnificent licking 
if ever he ran up against a member of the “ Fighting 
Forty.” A band of soldiers they were, ready to at- 
tempt anything their commander ordered, devoted, 
enthusiastically admiring. And, it must be confessed, 
they were also somewhat on the order of a band of 
pirates. Marquette thought so each spring after the 
drive, when, hat-tilted, they surged swearing and 
shouting down to Denny Hogan’s saloon. Denny had 
to buy new fixtures when they went away ; but it was 
worth it. 

Proud ! it was no name for it. Boast ! the fame of 
Camp One spread abroad over the land, and was be- 
lieved in to about twenty per cent of the anecdotes de- 
tailed of it — which was near enough the actual truth. 
Anecdotes disbelieved, the class of men from it would 
have given it a reputation. The latter was varied 
enough, in truth. Some people thought Camp One 
must be a sort of hell-hole of roaring, fighting devils. 
Others sighed and made rapid calculations of the num- 
ber of logs they could put in, if only they could get 
hold of help like that. 

Thorpe himself, of course, made his headquarters 
at Camp One. Thence he visited at least once a week 
all the other camps, inspecting the minutest details, 
not only of the work, but of the everyday life. For 
this purpose he maintained a light box sleigh and a 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


252 

pair of bays, though often, when the snow became 
deep, he was forced to snowshoes. 

During the five years he had never crossed the 
Straits of Mackinaw. The rupture with his sister had 
made repugnant to him all the southern country. He 
preferred to remain in the woods. All winter long he 
was more than busy at his logging. Summers he 
spent at the mill. Occasionally he visited Marquette, 
but always on business. He became used to seeing 
only the rough faces of men. The vision of softer 
graces and beauties lost its distinctness before this 
strong, hardy northland, whose gentler moods were 
like velvet over iron, or like its own summer leaves 
veiling the eternal darkness of the pines. 

He was happy because he was too busy to be any- 
thing else. The insistent need of success which he 
had created for himself, absorbed all other sentiments. 
He demanded it of others rigorously. He could do no 
less than demand it of himself. It had practically be- * 
come one of his tenets of belief. The chief end of any 
man, as he saw it, was to do well and successfully what 
his life found ready. Anything to further this fore- 
ordained activity was good; anything else was bad. 
These thoughts, aided by a disposition naturally fer- 
vent and single in purpose, hereditarily ascetic and 
conscientious — for his mother was of old New Eng- 
land stock — gave to him in the course of six years’ 
striving a sort of daily and familiar religion to which 
he conformed his life. 

Success, success, success. Nothing could be -of 
more importance. Its attainment argued a man’s effi- 
ciency in the Scheme of Things, his worthy fulfillment 
of the end for which a divine Providence had placed 
him on earth. Anything that interfered with it, — per- 
sonal comfort, inclination, affection, desire, love of 
ease, individual liking, — was bad. 

Luckily for Thorpe’s peace of mind, his habit of 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 253 

looking on men as things helped him keep to this at- 
titude of mind. His lumbermen were tools, — good, 
sharp, efficient tools, to be sure, but only because he 
had made them so. Their loyalty aroused in his 
breast no pride nor gratitude. He expected loyalty. 
He would have discharged at once a man who did not 
show it. The same with zeal, intelligence, effort — 
they were the things he took for granted. As for the 
admiration and affection which the Fighting Forty 
displayed for him personally, he gave not a thought 
to it. And the men knew it, and loved him the more 
from the fact. 

Thorpe cared for just three people, and none of them 
happened to clash with his machine. They were Wal- 
lace Carpenter, little Phil, and Injin Charley. 

Wallace, for reasons already explained at length, 
was always personally agreeable to Thorpe. Latter- 
ly, since the erection of the mill, he had developed un- 
expected acumen in the disposal of the season’s cut 
to wholesale dealers in Chicago. Nothing could have 
been better for the firm. Thereafter he was often in 
the woods, both for pleasure and to get his partner’s 
ideas on what the firm would have to offer. The entire 
responsibility of the city end of the business was in 
his hands. 

Injin Charley continued to hunt and trap in the 
country round about. Between him and Thorpe had 
grown a friendship the more solid in that its increase 
had been mysteriously without outward cause. Once 
or twice a month the lumberman would snowshoe 
down to the little cabin at the forks. Entering, 
he would nod briefly and seat himself on a cracker- 
box. 

“ How do, Charley,” said he. 

“ How do,” replied Charley. 

They filled pipes and smoked. At rare intervals 
one of them made a remark, tersely, 


254 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

“ Catch um three beaver las’ week,” remarked 
Charley. 

“ Good haul/’ commented Thorpe. 

Or: 

“ I saw a mink track by the big boulder,” offered 
Thorpe. 

“ H’m ! ” responded Charley in a long-drawn fal- 
setto whine. 

Yet somehow the men came to know each other bet- 
ter and better ; and each felt that in an emergency he 
could depend on the other to the uttermost in spite 
of the difference in race. 

As for Phil, he was like some strange, shy animal, 
retaining all its wild instincts, but led by affection to 
become domestic. He drew the water, cut the wood, 
— none better. In the evening he played atrociously 
his violin, — none worse, — bending his great white 
brow forward with the wolf-glare in his eyes, swaying 
his shoulders with a fierce delight in the subtle disso- 
nances, the swaggering exactitude of time, the vulgar 
rendition of the horrible tunes he played. And often 
he went into the forest and gazed wondering through 
his liquid poet’s eyes at occult things. Above all, he 
worshipped Thorpe. And in turn the lumberman ac- 
corded him a good-natured affection. He was as in- 
dispensable to Camp One as the beagles. 

And the beagles were most indispensable. No one 
could have got along without them. In the course 
of events and natural selection they had increased to 
eleven. At night they slept in the men’s camp under- 
neath or very near the stove. By daylight in the 
morning they were clamoring at the door. Never had 
they caught a hare. Never for a moment did their 
hopes sink. The men used sometimes to amuse them- 
selves by refusing the requested exit. The little dogs 
agonized. They leaped and yelped, falling over each 
other like a tangle of angleworms. Then finally, when 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 255 

the door at last flung wide, they precipitated them- 
selves eagerly and silently through the opening. A 
few moments later a single yelp rose in the direction 
of the swamp ; the band took up the cry. From then 
until dark the glade was musical with baying. At 
supper time they returned straggling, their expression 
pleased, six inches of red tongue hanging from the 
corners of their mouths, ravenously ready for supper. 

Strangely enough the big white hares never left the 
swamp. Perhaps the same one was never chased two 
days in succession. Or it is possible that the quarry 
enjoyed the harmless game as much as did the little 
dogs. 

Once only while the snow lasted was the hunt aban- 
doned for a few days. Wallace Carpenter announced 
his intention of joining forces with the diminutive 
hounds. 

“ It’s a shame, so it is, doggies ! ” he laughed at the 
tried pack. “ We’ll get one to-morrow.” 

So he took his shotgun to the swamp, and after a 
half hour’s wait, succeeded in killing the hare. From 
that moment he was the hero of those ecstacized ca- 
nines. They tangled about him everywhere. He 
hardly dared take a step for fear of crushing one of 
the open faces and expectant, pleading eyes looking 
up at him. It grew to be a nuisance. Wallace always 
claimed his trip was considerably shortened because 
he could not get away from his admirers. 


Chapter XXXVI 


INANCIALLY the Company was rated high, 



and yet was heavily in debt. This condition of 


B affairs by no means constitutes an anomaly in 
the lumbering business. 

The profits of the first five years had been immedi- 
ately reinvested in the business. Thorpe, with the 
foresight that had originally led him into this new 
country, saw farther than the instant’s gain. He in- 
tended to establish in a few years more a big plant 
which would be returning benefices in proportion not 
only to the capital originally invested, but also in ratio 
to the energy, time, and genius he had himself ex- 
pended. It was not the affair of a moment. It was 
not the affair of half-measures, of timidity. 

Thorpe knew that he could play safely, cutting a few 
millions a year, expanding cautiously. By this method 
he would arrive, but only after a long period. 

Or he could do as many other firms have done; 
start on borrowed money. 

In the latter case he had only one thing to fear, and 
that was fire. Every cent, and many times over, of 
his obligations would be represented in the state of 
raw material. All he had to do was to cut it out by 
the very means which the yearly profits of his busi- 
ness would enable him to purchase. For the moment, 
he owed a great deal ; without the shadow of a doubt 
mere industry would clear his debt, and leave him 
with substantial acquisitions created, practically, from 
nothing but his own abilities. The money obtained 
from his mortgages was a tool which he picked up 


256 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2J7 

an instant, used to fashion one of his own, and laid 
aside. 

Every autumn the Company found itself suddenly 
in easy circumstances. At any moment that Thorpe 
had chosen to be content with the progress made, he 
could have, so to speak, declared dividends with his 
partner. Instead of undertaking more improvements, 
for part of which he borrowed some money, he could 
have divided the profits of the season’s cut. But this 
he was not yet ready to do. 

He had established five more camps, he had acquired 
over a hundred and fifty million more of timber lying 
contiguous to his own, he had built and equipped a 
modern high-efficiency mill, he had constructed a har- 
bor break-water and the necessary booms, he had 
bought a tug, built a boarding-house. All this costs 
money. He wished now to construct a logging rail- 
road. Then he promised himself and Wallace that 
they would be ready to commence paying operations. 

The logging railroad was just then beginning to 
gain recognition. A few miles of track, a locomotive, 
and a number of cars consisting uniquely of wheels 
and “ bunks,” or cross beams on which to chain the 
logs, and a fairly well-graded right-of-way comprised 
the outfit. Its use obviated the necessity of driving the 
river — always an expensive operation. Often, too, 
the decking at the skidways could be dispensed with ; 
and the sleigh hauls, if not entirely superseded for the 
remote districts, were entirely so in the country for a 
half mile on either side of the track, and in any case 
were greatly shortened. There obtained, too, the ad- 
ditional advantage of being able to cut summer and 
winter alike. Thus, the plant once established, log- 
ging by railroad was not only easier but cheaper. Of 
late years it has come into almost universal use in big 
jobs and wherever the nature of the country will per- 
mit. The old-fashioned, picturesque ice-road sleigh- 


258 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

haul will last as long as north-woods lumbering, — ■ 
even in the railroad districts, — but the locomotive 
now does the heavy work. 

With the capital to be obtained from the following 
winter’s product, Thorpe hoped to be able to establish 
a branch which should run from a point some two miles 
behind Camp One, to a “dump ” a short distance above 
the mill. For this he had made all the estimates, and 
even the preliminary survey. He was therefore the 
more grievously disappointed, when Wallace Carpen- 
ter made it impossible for him to do so. 

He was sitting in the mill-office one day about the 
middle of July. Herrick, the engineer, had just been 
in. He could not keep the engine in order, although 
Thorpe knew that it could be done. 

“ I’ve sot up nights with her,” said Herrick, “ and 
she’s no go. I think I can fix her when my head gets 
all right. I got headachy lately. And somehow that 
last lot of Babbit metal didn’t seem to act just right.” 

Thorpe looked out of the window, tapping his desk 
slowly with the end of a lead pencil. 

“ Collins,” said he to the bookkeeper, without rais- 
ing his voice or altering his position, “ make out Her- 
rick’s time.” 

The man stood there astonished. 

“ But I had hard luck, sir,” he expostulated. 
“ She’ll go all right now, I think.” 

Thorpe turned and looked at him. 

“ Herrick,” he said, not unkindly, “ this is the 
second time this summer the mill has had to close 
early on account of that engine. We have supplied 
you with everything you asked for. If you can’t do it, 
we shall have to get a man who can.” 

“ But I had — ” began the man once more. 

“ I ask every man to succeed in what I give him 
to do,” interrupted Thorpe. “ If he has a headache, 
he must brace up or quit. If his Babbit doesn’t act 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


259 

just right he must doctor it up ; or get some more, 
even if he has to steal it. If he has hard luck, he must 
sit up nights to better it. It’s none of my concern how 
hard or how easy a time a man has in doing what I 
tell him to. I expect him to do it. If I have to do all 
a man’s thinking for him, I may as well hire Swedes 
and be done with it. I have too many details to attend 
to already without bothering about excuses.” 

The man stood puzzling over this logic. 

“ I ain’t got any other job,” he ventured. 

“ You can go to piling on the docks,” replied 
Thorpe, “ if you want to.” 

Thorpe was thus explicit because he rather liked 
Herrick. It was hard for him to discharge the man 
peremptorily, and he proved the need of justifying 
himself in his own eyes. 

Now he sat back idly in the clean painted little room 
with the big square desk and the three chairs. 
Through the door he could see Collins, perched on a 
high stool before the shelf-like desk. From the open 
window came the clear, musical note of the circular 
saw, the fresh aromatic smell of new lumber, the brac- 
ing air from Superior sparkling in the offing. He felt 
tired. In rare moments such as these, when the mus- 
cles of his striving relaxed, his mind turned to the past. 
Old sorrows rose before him and looked at him with 
their sad eyes ; the sorrows that had helped to make 
him what he was. He wondered where his sister was. 
She would be twenty-two years old now. A tender- 
ness, haunting, tearful, invaded his heart. He suf- 
fered. At such moments the hard shell of his rough 
woods life seemed to rend apart. He longed with a 
great longing for sympathy, for love, for the softer 
influences that cradle even warriors between the 
clangors of the battles. 

The outer door, beyond the cage behind which Col- 
lins and his shelf desk were placed, flew open. Thorpe 


260 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

heard a brief greeting, and Wallace Carpenter stood 
before him. 

“ Why, Wallace, I didn’t know you were coming! ” 
began Thorpe, and stopped. The boy, usually so 
fresh and happily buoyant, looked ten years older. 
Wrinkles had gathered between his eyes. “ Why, 
what’s the matter ? ” cried Thorpe. 

He rose swiftly and shut the door into the outer 
office. Wallace seated himself mechanically. 

“ Everything ! everything ! ” he said in despair. 
“ I’ve been a fool ! I’ve been blind ! ” 

So bitter was his tone that Thorpe was startled. 
The lumberman sat down on the other side of the 

“ That’ll do, Wallace,” he said sharply. “ Tell me 
briefly what is the matter.” 

“ I’ve been speculating ! ” burst out the boy. 

“ Ah ! ” said his partner. 

“ At first I bought only dividend-paying stocks out- 
right. Then I bought for a rise, but still outright. 
Then I got in with a fellow who claimed to know ail 
about it. I bought on a margin. There came a 
slump. I met the margins because I am sure there 
will be a rally, but now all my fortune is in the thing. 
I’m going to be penniless. I’ll lose it all.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Thorpe. 

“ And the name of Carpenter is so old-established, 
so honorable ! ” cried the unhappy boy, “ and my 
sister ! ” 

“ Easy ! ” warned Thorpe. “ Being penniless isn’t 
the worst thing that can happen to a man.” 

“ No ; but I am in debt,” went on the boy more 
calmly. “ I have given notes. When they come due, 
I’m a goner.” 

“ How much ? ” asked Thorpe laconically. 

“ Thirty thousand dollars.” 

“ Well, you have that amount in this firm.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


261 


“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ If you want it, you can have it.” 

Wallace considered a moment. 

“ That would leave me without a cent,” he replied. 

“ But it would save your commercial honor.” 

“ Harry,” cried Wallace suddenly, “ couldn’t this 
firm go on my note for thirty thousand more? Its 
credit is good, and that amount would save my mar- 
gins.” 

“ You are partner,” replied Thorpe, “ your signa- 
ture is as good as mine in this firm.” 

“ But you know I wouldn’t do it without your con- 
sent,” replied Wallace reproachfully. “ Oh, Harry! ” 
cried the boy, “ when you needed the amount, I let 
you have it ! ” 

Thorpe smiled. 

“ You know you can have it, if it’s to be had, Wal- 
lace. I wasn’t hesitating on that account. I was 
merely trying to figure out where we can raise such 
a sum as sixty thousand dollars. We haven’t got it.” 

“ But you’ll never have to pay it,” assured Wallace 
eagerly. “ If I can save my margins, I’ll be all right.” 

“ A man has to figure on paying whatever he puts 
his signature to,” asserted Thorpe. “ I can give you 
our note payable at the end of a year. Then I’ll hustle 
in enough timber to make up the amount. It means 
we don’t get our railroad, that’s all.” 

“ I knew you’d help me out. Now it’s all right,” 
said Wallace, with a relieved air. 

Thorpe shook his head. He was already trying to 
figure how to increase his cut to thirty million feet. 

“ I’ll do it,” he muttered to himself, after Wallace 
had gone out to visit the mill. “ I’ve been demanding 
success of others for a good many years ; now I’ll de- 
mand it of myself.” 




THE 

BLAZED 

TRAIL 

r 

Part IV 

Thorpe’s Dream Girl 

r f 

r 


4 


I 



Chapter XXXVII 

r HE moment had struck for the woman. 
Thorpe did not know it, but it was true. A 
solitary, brooding life in the midst of grand 
surroundings, an active, strenuous life among great 
responsibilities, a starved, hungry life of the affections 
whence even the sister had withdrawn her love, — all 
these had worked unobtrusively towards the forma- 
tion of a single psychological condition. Such a mo- 
ment comes to every man. In it he realizes the beau- 
ties, the powers, the vastnesses which unconsciously 
his being has absorbed. They rise to the surface as a 
need, which, being satisfied, is projected into the visi- 
ble world as an ideal to be worshipped. Then is happi- 
ness and misery beside which the mere struggle to 
dominate men becomes trivial, the petty striving with 
the forces of nature seems a little thing. And the 
woman he at that time meets takes on the qualities of 
the dream; she is more than woman, less than god- 
dess ; she is the best of that man made visible. 

Thorpe found himself for the first time filled with 
the spirit of restlessness. His customary iron even- 
ness of temper was gone, so that he wandered quickly 
from one detail of his work to another, without seem- 
ing to penetrate below the surface-need of any one 
task. Out of the present his mind was always escap- 
ing to a mystic fourth dimension which he did not 
understand. But a week before, he had felt himself 
absorbed in the component parts of his enterprise, the 
totality of which arched far over his head, shutting out 
the sky. Now he was outside of it. He had, without 
263 


266 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


his volition, abandoned the creator’s standpoint of the 
god at the heart of his work. It seemed as important, 
as great to him, but somehow it had taken on a strange 
solidarity, as though he had left it a plastic beginning 
and returned to find it hardened into the shapes of 
finality. He acknowledged it admirable, — and won- 
dered how he had ever accomplished it! He con- 
fessed that it should be finished as it had begun, — and 
could not discover in himself the Titan who had 
watched over its inception. 

Thorpe took this state of mind much to heart, and 
in combating it expended more energy than would 
have sufficed to accomplish the work. Inexorably he 
held himself to the task. He filled his mind full of 
lumbering. The millions along the bank on section 
nine must be cut and travoyed directly to the rollways. 
It was a shame that the necessity should arise. From 
section nine Thorpe had hoped to lighten the expenses 
when finally he should begin operations on the distant 
and inaccessible headwaters of French Creek. Now 
there was no help for it. The instant necessity was to 
get thirty millions of pine logs down the river before 
Wallace Carpenter’s notes came due. Every other 
consideration had to yield before that. Fifteen mill- 
ions more could be cut on seventeen, nineteen, and 
eleven, — regions hitherto practically untouched, — by 
the men in the four camps inland. Camp One and 
Camp Three could attend to section nine. 

These were details to which Thorpe applied his 
mind. As he pushed through the sun-flecked forest, 
laying out his roads, placing his travoy trails, spying 
the difficulties that might supervene to mar the fair 
face of honest labor, he had always this thought before 
him, — that he must apply his mind. By an effort, a 
tremendous effort, he succeeded in doing so. The 
effort left him limp. He found himself often standing, 
or moving gently, his eyes staring sightless, his mind 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 267 

cradled on vague misty clouds of absolute inaction, 
his will chained so softly and yet so firmly that he felt 
no strength and hardly the desire to break from the 
dream that lulled him. Then he was conscious of the 
physical warmth of the sun, the faint sweet woods 
smells, the soothing caress of the breeze, the sleepy 
cicada-like note of the pine creeper. Through his 
half-closed lashes the tangled sun-beams made soft- 
tinted rainbows. He wanted nothing so much as to 
sit on the pine needles there in the golden flood of 
radiance, and dream — dream on — vaguely, comfort- 
ably, sweetly — dream of the summer 

Thorpe, with a mighty and impatient effort, snapped 
the silken cords asunder. 

“ Lord, Lord ! ” he cried impatiently. “ What’s 
coming to me? I must be a little off my feed ! ” 

And he hurried rapidly to his duties. After an hour 
of the hardest concentration he had ever been required 
to bestow on a trivial subject, he again unconsciously 
sank by degrees into the old apathy. 

“ Glad it isn’t the busy season ! ” he commented to 
himself. “ Here, I must quit this ! Guess it’s the 
warm weather. I’ll get down to the mill for a day or 
two.” 

There he found himself incapable of even the most 
petty routine work. He sat to his desk at eight 
o’clock and began the perusal of a sheaf of letters, 
comprising a certain correspondence, which Collins 
brought him. The first three he read carefully ; the 
following two rather hurriedly; of the next one he 
seized only the salient and essential points ; the seventh 
and eighth he skimmed ; the remainder of the bundle 
he thrust aside in uncontrollable impatience. Next 
day he returned to the woods. 

The incident of the letters had aroused to the full 
his old fighting spirit, before which no mere instincts 
could stand. He clamped the iron to his actions and 


268 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


forced them to the way appointed. Once more his 
mental processes became clear and incisive, his com- 
mands direct and to the point. To all outward appear- 
ance Thorpe was as before. 

He opened Camp One, and the Fighting Forty came 
back from distant drinking joints. This was in early 
September, when the raspberries were entirely done 
and the blackberries fairly in the way of vanishing. 
That able-bodied and devoted band of men was on 
hand when needed. Shearer, in some subtle manner 
of his own, had let them feel that this year meant thirty 
million or “ bust.” They tightened their leather belts 
and stood ready for commands. Thorpe set them to 
work near the river, cutting roads along the lines he 
had blazed to the inland timber on seventeen and nine- 
teen. After much discussion with Shearer the young 
man decided to take out the logs from eleven by driv- 
ing them down French Creek. 

To this end a gang was put to clearing the creek- 
bed. It was a tremendous job. Centuries of forest 
life had choked the little stream nearly to the level of 
its banks. Old snags and stumps lay imbedded in the 
ooze; decayed trunks, moss-grown, blocked the cur- 
rent; leaning tamaracks, fallen timber, tangled vines, 
dense thickets gave to its course more the appearance 
of a tropical jungle than of a north country brook- 
bed. All these things had to be removed, one by one, 
and either piled to one side or burnt. In the end, 
however, it would pay. French Creek was not a large 
stream, but it could be driven during the time of the 
spring freshets. 

Each night the men returned in the beautiful dream- 
like twilight to the camp. There they sat, after eating, 
smoking their pipes in the open air. Much of the time 
they sang, while Phil, crouching wolf-like over his 
violin, rasped out an accompaniment of dissonances. 
From a distance it softened and fitted pleasantly into 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 269 

the framework of the wilderness. The men’s voices 
lent themselves well to the weird minor strains of the 
chanteys. These times — when the men sang, and the 
night-wind rose and died in the hemlock tops — were 
Thorpe’s worst moments. His soul, tired with the 
day’s iron struggle, fell to brooding. Strange thoughts 
came to him, strange visions. He wanted something 
— he knew not what ; he longed, and thrilled, and 
aspired to a greater glory than that of brave deeds, 
a softer comfort than his old foster mother, the wilder- 
ness, could bestow. 

The men were singing in a mighty chorus, swaying 
their heads in unison, and bringing out with a roar 
the emphatic words of the crude ditties written by 
some genius from their own ranks. 

“ Come all ye sons of freedom throughout old Michigan , 

Come all ye gallant lumbermen , list to a shanty man . 

On the banks of the Muskegon , where the rapid waters 
flow , 

OH J — we'll range the wild woods o'er while a-lumbering 
we go l* 

Here was the bold unabashed front of the pioneer, 
here was absolute certainty in the superiority of his 
calling, — absolute scorn of all others. Thorpe passed 
his hand across his brow. The same spirit was once 
fully and freely his. 

“ The music of our burnished ax shall make the woods 
resound , 

And many a lofty ancient pine will tumble to the ground. 

At night around our shanty fire we'll sing while rude 
winds blow , 

OH ! — we'll range the wild woods o'er while a-lumbering 
we go ! " 

That was what he was here for. Things were going 
right. It would be pitiful to fail merely on account 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


270 

of this idiotic lassitude, this unmanly weakness, this 
boyish impatience and desire for play. He a woods- 
man ! He a fellow with these big strong men ! 

A single voice, clear and high, struck into a quick 
measure : 

“ I am a jolly shanty boy , 

As you will soon discover ; 

To all the dodges I am fly , 

A hustling pine-woods rover . 

A peavey-hook it is my pride , 

An ax I well can handle . 

To fell a tree or punch a bull 
Get rattling Danny Randall." 

And then with a rattle and crash the whole Fighting 
Forty shrieked out the chorus: 

“ Bung yer eye ! bung yer eye ! " 

Active, alert, prepared for any emergency that might 
arise; hearty, ready for everything, from punching 
bulls to felling trees — that was something like ! 
Thorpe despised himself. The song went on. 

“ I love a girl in Saginaw , 

She lives with her mother. 

J defy all Michigan 
To find such another. 

She's tall and slim , her hair is red, ’ 

Her face is plump and pretty. 

She’s my daisy Sunday best-day girl , 

And her front name stands for Kitty." 

And again as before the Fighting Forty howled 
truculently : 

“ Bung yer eye ! bung yer eye ! " 

The words were vulgar, the air a mere minor chant. 
Yet Thorpe’s mind was stilled. His aroused subcon- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 7 l 


sciousness had been engaged in reconstructing these 
men entire as their songs voiced rudely the inner char- 
acteristics of their beings. Now his spirit halted, 
finger on lip. Their bravery, pride of caste, resource, 
bravado, boastfulness, — all these he had checked off 
approvingly. Here now was the idea of the Mate. 
Somewhere for each of them was a “ Kitty,” a “ daisy 
Sunday best-day girl ” ; the eternal feminine ; the softer 
side; the tenderness, beauty, glory of even so harsh a 
world as they were compelled to inhabit. At the pres- 
ent or in the past these woods roisterers, this Fighting 
Forty, had known love. Thorpe arose abruptly and 
turned at random into the forest. The song pursued 
him as he went, but he heard only the clear sweet 
tones, not the words. And yet even the words would 
have spelled to his awakened sensibilities another idea, 
— would have symbolized, however rudely, compan- 
ionship and the human delight of acting a part before 
a woman. 

“ I took her to a dance one night , 

A mossback gave the bidding — 

Silver Jack bossed the shebang , 

And Big Dan played the fiddle . 

We danced and drank the livelong night 
With fights between the dancing , 

Till Silver Jack cleaned out the ranch 
And sent the mossbacks prancing 

And with the increasing war and turmoil of the 
quick water the last shout of the Fighting Forty min- 
gled faintly and was lost. 

“ Bung yer eye ! bung yer eye / ” 

Thorpe found himself at the edge of the woods fac- 
ing a little glade into which streamed the radiance of 
a full moon. 


Chapter XXXVIII 

r HERE he stood and looked silently, not 
understanding, not caring to inquire. Across 
the way a white-throat was singing, clear, 
beautiful, like the shadow of a dream. The girl stood 
listening. 

Her small fair head was inclined ever so little side- 
ways and her finger was on her lips as though she 
wished to still the very hush of night, to which impres- 
sion the inclination of her supple body lent its grace. 
The moonlight shone full upon her countenance. A lit- 
tle white face it was, with wide clear eyes and a sensi- 
tive, proud mouth that now half parted like a child’s. 
Her eyebrows arched from her straight nose in the pe- 
culiarly graceful curve that falls just short of pride on 
the one side and of power on the other, to fill the eyes 
with a pathos of trust and innocence. The man watch- 
ing could catch the poise of her long white neck and 
the molten moon-fire from her tumbled hair, — the 
color of corn-silk, but finer. 

And yet these words mean nothing. A painter 
might have caught her charm, but he must needs be 
a poet as well, — and a great poet, one capable of 
grandeurs and subtleties. 

To the young man standing there rapt in the spell 
of vague desire, of awakened vision, she seemed most 
like a flower or a mist. He tried to find words to 
formulate her to himself, but did not succeed. Always 
it came back to the same idea — the flower and the 
mist. Like the petals of a flower most delicate was 
her questioning, upturned face; like the bend of a 
272 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 73 

Ljwer most rare the stalk of her graceful throat; like 
the poise of a flower most dainty the attitude of her 
beautiful, perfect body sheathed in a garment that out- 
lined each movement, for the instant in suspense. 
Like a mist the glimmering of her skin, the shining of 
her hair, the elusive moonlike quality of her whole per- 
sonality as she stood there in the ghost-like clearing 
listening, her fingers on her lips. 

Behind her lurked the low, even shadow of the for- 
est. where the moon was not, a band of velvet against 
which the girl and the light-touched twigs and bushes 
and grass blades were etched like frost against a black 
window pane. There was something, too, of the frost- 
work’s evanescent spiritual quality in the scene, — as 
though at any moment, with a puff of the balmy sum- 
mer wind, the radiant glade, the hovering figure, the 
filagreed silver of the entire setting would melt into 
the accustomed stern and menacing forest of the north- 
land, with its wolves, and its wild deer, and the voices 
of its sterner calling. 

Thorpe held his breath and waited. Again the 
white-throat lifted his clear, spiritual note across the 
brightness, slow, trembling with ecstacy. The girl 
never moved. She stood in the moonlight like a beau- 
tiful emblem of silence, half real, half fancy, part 
woman, wholly divine, listening to the little bird’s 
message. 

For the third time the song shivered across the 
night; then Thorpe with a soft sob, dropped his face 
in his hands and looked no more/ 

He did not feel the earth beneath his knees, nor the 
whip of the sumach across his face ; he did not see the 
moon shadows creep slowly along the fallen birch ; 
nor did he notice that the white-throat had hushed its 
song. His inmost spirit was shaken. Something had 
entered his soul and filled it to the brim, so that he 
dared no longer stand in the face of radiance until he 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


274 

had accounted with himself. Another drop would 
overflow the cup. 

Ah, sweet God, the beauty of it, the beauty of it ! 
That questing, childlike starry gaze, seeking so purely 
to the stars themselves ! That flower face, those 
drooping, half parted lips! That inexpressible, un- 
seizable something they had meant ! Thorpe searched 
humbly — eagerly — then with agony through his 
troubled spirit, and in its furthermost depths saw the 
mystery as beautifully remote as ever. It approached 
and swept over him and left him gasping passion- 
racked. Ah, sweet God, the beauty of it ! the beauty 
of it ! the vision ! the dream ! 

He trembled and sobbed with his desire to seize it, 
with his impotence to express it, with his failure even 
to appreciate it as his heart told him it should be ap- 
preciated. 

He dared not look. At length he turned and stum- 
bled back through the moonlit forest crying on his old 
gods in vain. 

At the banks of the river he came to a halt. There 
in the velvet pines the moonlight slept calmly, and 
the shadows rested quietly under the breezeless sky. 
Near at hand the river shouted as ever its cry of joy 
over the vitality of life, like a spirited boy before the 
face of inscrutable nature. All else was silence. Then 
from the waste boomed a strange, hollow note, rising, 
dying, rising again, instinct with the spirit of the wilds. 
It fell, and far away sounded a heavy but distant crash. 
The cry lifted again. It was the first bull moose call- 
ing across the wilderness to his mate. 

And then, faint but clear down the current of a 
chance breeze drifted the chorus of the Fighting 
Forty. 

“ The forests so brown at our stroke go down, 

And cities spring up where they fell ; 

While logs well run and work well done 
Is the story the shanty boys tellT 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


275 


Thorpe turned from the river with a thrust forward 
of his head. He was not a religious man, and in his 
six years’ woods experience had never been to church. 
Now he looked up over the tops of the pines to where 
the Pleiades glittered faintly among the brighter stars. 

“ Thanks, God,” said he briefly. 


Chapter XXXIX 

W 10R several days this impression satisfied him 
rj completely. He discovered, strangely enough, 
M that his restlessness had left him, that once 
more he was able to give to his work his former energy 
and interest. It was as though some power had raised 
its finger and a storm had stilled, leaving calm, un- 
ruffled skies. 

He did not attempt to analyze this ; he did not even 
make an effort to contemplate it. His critical faculty 
was stricken dumb and it asked no questions of him. 
At a touch his entire life had changed. Reality or 
vision, he had caught a glimpse of something so en- 
tirely different from anything his imagination or ex- 
perience had ever suggested to him, that at first he 
could do no more than permit passively its influences 
to adjust themselves to his being. 

Curiosity, speculation, longing, — all the more active 
emotions remained in abeyance while outwardly, for 
three days, Harry Thorpe occupied himself only with 
the needs of the Fighting Forty at Camp One. 

In the early morning he went out with the gang. 
While they chopped or heaved, he stood by serene. 
Little questions of expediency he solved. Dilemmas 
he discussed leisurely with Tim Shearer. Occasion- 
ally he lent a shoulder when the peaveys lacked of pry- 
ing a stubborn log from its bed. Not once did he 
glance at the nooning sun. His patience was quiet 
and sure. When evening came he smoked placidly 
outside the office, listening to the conversation and 
laughter of the men, caressing one of the beagles, while 
276 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


2 77 

the rest slumbered about his feet, watching dreamily 
the night shadows and the bats. At about nine o’clock 
he went to bed, and slept soundly. He was vaguely 
conscious of a great peace within him, a great stillness 
of the spirit, against which the metallic events of his 
craft clicked sharply in vivid relief. It was the peace 
and stillness of a river before it leaps. 

Little by little the condition changed. The man felt 
vague stirrings of curiosity. He speculated aimlessly 
as to whether or not the glade, the moonlight, the girl, 
had been real or merely the figments of imagination. 
Almost immediately the answer leaped at him from 
his heart. Since she was so certainly flesh and blood, 
whence did she come? what was she doing there in 
the wilderness ? His mind pushed the query aside as 
unimportant, rushing eagerly to the essential point: 
When could he see her again? How find for the 
second time the vision before which his heart felt the 
instant need of prostrating itself. His placidity had 
gone. That morning he made some vague excuse to 
Shearer and set out blindly down the river. 

He did not know where he was going, any more 
than did the bull moose plunging through the trackless 
wilderness to his mate. Instinct, the instinct of all 
wild natural creatures, led him. And so, without 
thought, without clear intention even, — most would 
say by accident, — he saw her again. It was near the 
“ pole trail ” ; which was less like a trail than a rail- 
fence. 

For when the snows are deep and snowshoes not the 
property of every man who cares to journey, the old- 
fashioned “ pole trail ” comes into use. It is merely 
a series of horses built of timber across which thick 
Norway logs are laid, about four feet from the ground, 
to form a continuous pathway. A man must be a 
tight-rope walker to stick to the pole trail when ice 
and snow have sheathed its logs. If he makes a mis- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


278 

step, he is precipitated ludicrously into feathery 
depths through which he must flounder to the nearest 
timber horse before he can remount. In summer, as 
has been said, it resembles nothing so much as a thick 
one-rail fence of considerable height, around which a 
fringe of light brush has grown. 

Thorpe reached the fringe of bushes, and was about 
to dodge under the fence, when he saw her. So he 
stopped short, concealed by the leaves and the timber 
horse. 

She stood on a knoll in the middle of a grove of 
monster pines. There was something of the cathedral 
in the spot. A hush dwelt in the dusk, the long col- 
umns lifted grandly to the Roman arches of the frond, 
faint murmurings stole here and there like whispering 
acolytes. The girl stood tall and straight among the 
tall, straight pines like a figure on an ancient tapestry. 
She was doing nothing — just standing there — but 
the awe of the forest was in her wide, clear eyes. 

The great sweet feeling clutched the young man’s 
throat again. But while the other, — the vision of the 
frost-work glade and the spirit-like figure of silence - — , 
had been unreal and phantasmagoric, this was of the 
earth. He looked, and looked, and looked again. He 
saw the full pure curve of her cheek’s contour, neither 
oval nor round, but like the outline of a certain kind 
of plum. He appreciated the half-pathetic downward 
droop of the corners of her mouth, — her red mouth 
in dazzling, bewitching contrast to the milk-whiteness 
of her skin. He caught the fineness of her nose, 
straight as a Grecian’s, but with some faint suggestion 
about the nostrils that hinted at piquance. And the 
waving corn silk of her altogether charming and un- 
ruly hair, the superb column of her long neck on which 
her little head poised proudly like a flower, her sup- 
ple body, whose curves had the long undulating grace 
of the current in a swift river, her slender white hand 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


279 

with the pointed fingers — all these he saw one after 
the other, and his soul shouted within him at the sight. 
He wrestled with the emotions that choked him. 
“ Ah, God ! Ah, God ! ” he cried softly to himself like 
one in pain. He, the man of iron frame, of iron nerve, 
hardened by a hundred emergencies, trembled in every 
muscle before a straight, slender girl, clad all in brown, 
standing alone in the middle of the ancient forest. 

In a moment she stirred slightly, and turned. 
Drawing herself to her full height, she extended her 
hands over her head palm outward, and, with an inde- 
scribably graceful gesture, half mockingly bowed a 
ceremonious adieu to the solemn trees. Then with a 
little laugh she moved away in the direction of the 
river. 

At once Thorpe proved a great need of seeing her 
again. In his present mood there was nothing of the 
awe-stricken peace he had experienced after the moon- 
light adventure. He wanted the sight of her as he 
had never wanted anything before. He must have it, 
and he looked about him fiercely as though to chal- 
lenge any force in Heaven or Hell that would deprive 
him of it. His eyes desired to follow the soft white 
curve of her cheek, to dance with the light of her corn- 
silk hair, to delight in the poetic movements of her 
tall, slim body, to trace the full outline of her chin, to 
wonder at the carmine of her lips, red as a blood-spot 
on the snow. These things must be at once. The 
strong man desired it. And finding it impossible, he 
raged inwardly and tore the tranquillities of his heart, 
as on the shores of the distant Lake of Stars, the bull- 
moose trampled down the bushes in his passion. 

So it happened that he ate hardly at all that day, and 
slept ill, and discovered the greatest difficulty in pre- 
serving the outward semblance of ease which the pres- 
ence of Tim Shearer and the Fighting Forty de- 
manded. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


280 

And next day he saw her again, and the next, be- 
cause the need of his heart demanded it, and because, 
simply enough, she came every afternoon to the clump 
of pines by the old pole trail. 

Now had Thorpe taken the trouble to inquire, he 
could have learned easily enough all there was to be 
known of the affair. But he did not take the trouble. 
His consciousness was receiving too many new im- 
pressions, so that in a manner it became bewildered. 
At first, as has been seen, the mere effect of the vision 
was enough ; then the sight of the girl sufficed him. 
But now curiosity awoke and a desire for something 
more. He must speak to her, touch her hand, look 
into her eyes. He resolved to approach her, and the 
mere thought choked him and sent him weak. 

When he saw her again from the shelter of the pole 
trail, he dared not, and so stood there prey to a novel 
sensation, — that of being baffled in an intention. It 
awoke within him a vast passion compounded part of 
rage at himself, part of longing for that which he could 
not take, but most of love for the girl. As he hesi- 
tated in one mind but in two decisions, he saw that she 
was walking slowly in his direction. 

Perhaps a hundred paces separated the two. She 
took them deliberately, pausing now and again to lis- 
ten, to pluck a leaf, to smell the fragrant balsam and 
fir tops as she passed them. Her progression was a 
series of poses, the one of which melted imperceptibly 
into the other without appreciable pause of transition. 
So subtly did her grace appeal to the sense of sight, 
that out of mere sympathy the other senses responded 
with fictions of their own. Almost could the young 
man behind the trail savor a faint fragrance, a faint 
music that surrounded and preceded her like the 
shadows of phantoms. He knew it as an illusion, 
born of his desire, and yet it was a noble illusion, for it 
had its origin in her. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 281 

In a moment she had reached the fringe of brush 
about the pole trail. They stood face to face. 

She gave a little start of surprise, and her hand 
leaped to her breast, where it caught and stayed. Her 
childlike down-drooping mouth parted a little more, 
and the breath quickened through it. But her eyes, 
her wide, trusting, innocent eyes, sought his and 
rested. 

He did not move. The eagerness, the desire, the 
long years of ceaseless struggle, the thirst for affec- 
tion, the sob of awe at the moonlit glade, the love, — 
all these flamed in his eyes and fixed his gaze in an 
unconscious ardor that had nothing to do with con- 
vention or timidity. One on either side of the spike- 
marked old Norway log of the trail they stood, and 
for an appreciable interval the duel of their glances 
lasted, — he masterful, passionate, exigent ; she proud, 
cool, defensive in the aloofness of her beauty. Then 
at last his prevailed. A faint color rose from her neck, 
deepened, and spread over her face and forehead. In 
a moment she dropped her eyes. 

“ Don’t you think you stare a little rudely — Mr. 
Thorpe? ” she asked. 


Chapter XL 


r HE vision was over, but the beauty remained. 
The spoken words of protest made her a 
woman. Never again would she, nor any 
other creature of the earth, appear to Thorpe as she 
had in the silver glade or the cloistered pines. He 
had had his moment of insight. The deeps had twice 
opened to permit him to look within. Now they had 
closed again. But out of them had fluttered a great 
love and the priestess of it. Always, so long as life 
should be with him, Thorpe was destined to see in this 
tall graceful girl with the red lips and the white skin 
and the corn-silk hair, more beauty, more of the great 
mysterious spiritual beauty which is eternal, than her 
father or her mother or her dearest and best. For to 
them the vision had not been vouchsafed, while he had 
seen her as the highest symbol of God’s splendor. 

Now she stood before him, her head turned half 
away, a faint flush still tingeing the chalk-white of her 
skin, watching him with a dim, half-pleading smile in 
expectation of his reply. 

“ Ah, moon of my soul ! light of my life ! ” he cried, 
but he cried it within him, though it almost escaped 
his vigilance to his lips. What he really said sounded 
almost harsh in consequence. 

“ How did you know my name? ” he asked. 

She planted both elbows on the Norway and framed 
her little face deliciously with her long pointed hands. 

“ If Mr. Harry Thorpe can ask that question,” she 
replied, “ he is not quite so impolite as I had thought 
him.” 


282 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 283 

“ If you don’t stop pouting your lips, I shall kiss 
them ! ” cried Harry — to himself. 

“ How is that ? ” he inquired breathlessly. 

“ Don’t you know who I am?” she asked in re- 
turn. 

“ A goddess, a beautiful woman ! ” he answered 
ridiculously enough. 

She looked straight at him. This time his gaze 
dropped. 

“ I am a friend of Elizabeth Carpenter, who is Wal- 
lace Carpenter’s sister, who I believe is Mr. Harry 
Thorpe’s partner.” 

She paused as though for comment. The young 
man opposite was occupied in many other more im- 
portant directions. Some moments later the words 
trickled into his brain, and some moments after that 
he realized their meaning. 

“We wrote Mr. Harry Thorpe that we were about 
to descend on his district with wagons and tents and 
Indians and things, and asked him to come and see 
us.” 

“ Ah, heart o’ mine, what clear, pure eyes she has ! 
How they look at a man to drown his soul ! ” 

Which, even had it been spoken, was hardly the 
comment one would have expected. 

The girl looked at him for a moment steadily, then 
smiled. The change of countenance brought Thorpe 
to himself, and at the same moment the words she had 
spoken reached his comprehension. 

“ But I never received the letter. I’m so sorry,” 
said he. “ It must be at the mill. You see, I’ve been 
up in the woods for nearly a month.” 

“ Then we’ll have to forgive you.” 

“ But I should think they would have done some- 
thing for you at the mill ” 

“ Oh, we didn’t come by way of your mill. We 
drove from Marquette.” 


284 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ I see,” cried Thorpe, enlightened. “ But I’m 
sorry I didn’t know. I’m sorry you didn’t let me 
know. I suppose you thought I was still at the mill. 
How did you get along? Is Wallace with you? ” 

“ No,” she replied, dropping her hands and straight- 
ening her erect figure. “ It’s horrid. He was coming, 
and then some business came up and he couldn’t get 
away. We are having the loveliest time though. I 
do adore the woods. Come,” she cried impatiently, 
sweeping aside to leave a way clear, “ you shall meet 
my friends.” 

Thorpe imagined she referred to the rest of the tent- 
ing party. He hesitated. 

“ I am hardly in fit condition,” he objected. 

She laughed, parting her red lips. “ You are ex- 
tremely picturesque just as you are,” she said with 
rather embarrassing directness. “ I wouldn’t have you 
any different for the world. But my friends don’t 
mind. They are used to it.” She laughed again. 

Thorpe crossed the pole trail, and for the first time 
found himself by her side. The warm summer odors 
were in the air, a dozen lively little birds sang in the 
brush along the rail, the sunlight danced and flickered 
through the openings. 

Then suddenly they were among the pines, and the 
air was cool, the vista dim, and the bird songs incon- 
ceivably far away. 

The girl walked directly to the foot of a pine three 
feet through, and soaring up an inconceivable distance 
through the still twilight. 

“ This is Jimmy,” said she gravely. “ He is a dear 
good old rough bear when you don’t know him, but 
he likes me. If you put your ear close against him,” 
she confided, suiting the action to the word, “ you can 
hear him talking to himself. This little fellow is 
Tommy. I don’t care so much for Tommy because 
he’s sticky. Still, I like him pretty well, and here’s 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 285 

Dick, and that’s Bob, and the one just beyond is 
Jack.” 

“ Where is Harry? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ I thought one in a woods was quite sufficient,” 
she replied with the least little air of impertinence. 

“ Why do you name them such common, everyday 
names ? ” he inquired. 

“ I’ll tell you. It’s because they are so big and 
grand themselves, that it did not seem to me they need- 
ed high-sounding names. What do you think?” she 
begged with an appearance of the utmost anxiety. 

Thorpe expressed himself as in agreement. As the 
half-quizzical conversation progressed, he found their 
relations adjusting themselves with increasing rapid- 
ity. He had been successively the mystic devotee be- 
fore his vision, the worshipper before his goddess ; 
now he was unconsciously assuming the attitude of 
the lover before his mistress. It needs always this 
humanizing touch to render the greatest of all pas- 
sions livable. 

And as the human element developed, he proved at 
the same time greater and greater difficulty in repress- 
ing himself and greater and greater fear of the results 
in case he should not do so. He trembled with the 
desire to touch her long slender hand, and as soon as 
his imagination had permitted him that much he had 
already crushed her to him and had kissed passionately 
her starry face. Words hovered on his lips longing for 
flight. He withheld them by an effort that left him 
almost incoherent, for he feared with a deadly fear lest 
he lose forever what the vision had seemed to offer 
to his hand. 

So he said little, and that lamely, for he dreaded to 
say too much. To her playful sallies he had no riposte. 
And in consequence he fell more silent with another 
boding — that he was losing his cause outright for lack 
of a ready word. 


28b 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


He need not have been alarmed. A woman in such 
a case hits as surely as a man misses. Her very dain- 
tiness and preciosity of speech indicated it. For 
where a man becomes stupid and silent, a woman 
covers her emotions with words and a clever speech. 
Not in vain is a proud-spirited girl stared down in such 
a contest of looks ; brave deeds simply told by a friend 
are potent to win interest in advance ; a straight, mus- 
cular figure, a brown skin, a clear, direct eye, a car- 
riage of power and acknowledged authority, strike 
hard at a young imagination ; a mighty passion sweeps 
aside the barriers of the heart. Such a victory, such a 
friend, such a passion had Thorpe. 

And so the last spoken exchange between them 
meant nothing ; but if each could have read the unsaid 
words that quiuered on the other’s heart, Thorpe 
would have returned to the Fighting Forty more tran- 
quilly, while she would probably not have returned to 
the camping party at all for a number of hours. 

“ I do not think you had better come with me,” she 
said. “ Make your call and be forgiven on your own 
account. I don’t want to drag you in at my chariot 
wheels.” 

“ All right. I’ll come this afternoon,” Thorpe had 
replied. 

“ I love her, I must have her. I must go — at 
once,” his soul had cried, “ quick — now — before I 
kiss her ! ” 

“ How strong he is,” she said to herself, “ how 
brave-looking; how honest ! He is different from the 
other men. He is magnificent.” 


Chapter XLI 


r HAT afternoon Thorpe met the other mem- 
bers of the party, offered his apologies and ex- 
planations, and was graciously forgiven. He 
found the personnel to consist of, first of all, Mrs. 
Cary, the chaperone, a very young married woman of 
twenty-two or thereabouts; her husband, a youth of 
three years older, clean-shaven, light-haired, quiet- 
mannered; Miss Elizabeth Carpenter, who resembled 
her brother in the characteristics of good-looks, viva- 
cious disposition and curly hair ; an attendant satellite 
of the masculine persuasion called Morton; and last 
of all the girl whom Thorpe had already so variously 
encountered and whom he now met as Miss Hilda Far- 
rand. Besides these were Ginger, a squab negro built 
to fit the galley of a yacht; and three Indian guides. 
They inhabited tents, which made quite a little en- 
campment. 

Thorpe was received with enthusiasm. Wallace 
Carpenter’s stories of his woods partner, while never 
doing more than justice to the truth, had been of a 
warm color tone. One and all owned a lively curios- 
ity to see what a real woodsman might be like. When 
he proved to be handsome and well mannered, as well 
as picturesque, his reception was no longer in doubt. 

Nothing could exceed his solicitude as to their com- 
fort and amusement. He inspected personally the ar- 
rangement of the tents, and suggested one or two 
changes conducive to the littler comforts. This was 
not much like ordinary woods-camping. The largest 
wall-tent contained three folding cots for the women, 

' ? 8 7 


288 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


over which, in the daytime, were flung bright-colored 
Navajo blankets. Another was spread on the ground. 
Thorpe later, however, sent over two bear skins, which 
were acknowledgedly an improvement. To the tent 
pole a mirror of size was nailed, and below it stood a 
portable washstand. The second tent, devoted to the 
two men, was not quite so luxurious ; but still boasted 
of little conveniences the true woodsman would never 
consider worth the bother of transporting. The third, 
equally large, was the dining tent. The other three, 
smaller, and on the A tent order, served respectively 
as sleeping rooms for Ginger and the Indians, and as 
a general store-house for provisions and impedimenta. 

Thorpe sent an Indian to Camp One for the bear- 
skins, put the rest to digging a trench around the 
sleeping tents in order that a rain storm might not 
cause a flood, and ordered Ginger to excavate a square 
hole some feet deep which he intended to utilize as a 
larder. 

Then he gave Morton and Cary hints as to the deer 
they wished to capture, pointed out the best trout 
pools, and issued advice as to the compassing of cer- 
tain blackberries, not far distant. 

Simple things enough they were to do — it was as 
though a city man were to direct a newcomer to Cen- 
tral Park, or impart to him a test for the destinations 
of trolley lines — yet Thorpe’s new friends were pro- 
foundly impressed with his knowledge of occult things. 
The forest was to them, as to most, more or less of a 
mystery, unfathomable except to the favored of ge- 
nius. A man who could interpret it, even a little, into 
the speech of everyday comfort and expediency pos- 
sessed a strong claim to their imaginations. When he 
had finished these practical affairs, they wanted him 
to sit down and tell them more things, — to dine with 
them, to smoke about their camp fire in the evening. 
But here they encountered a decided check. Thorpe 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


289 

became silent, almost morose. He talked in monosyl- 
lables, and soon went away. They did not know what 
to make of him, and so were, of course, the more pro- 
foundly interested. The truth was, his habitual reti- 
cence would not have permitted a great degree of ex- 
pansion in any case, but now the presence of Hilda 
made any but an attitude of hushed waiting for her 
words utterly impossible to him. He wished well to 
them all. If there was anything he could do for them, 
he would gladly undertake it. But he would not act 
the lion nor tell of his, to them, interesting adventures. 

However, when he discovered that Hilda had ceased 
visiting the clump of pines near the pole trail, his desire 
forced him back among these people. He used to 
walk in swiftly at almost any time of day, casting quick 
glances here and there in search of his divinity. 

“ How do, Mrs. Cary,” he would say. “ Nice 
weather. Enjoying yourself ? ” 

; On receiving the reply he would answer heartily, 
“ That’s good ! ” and lapse into silence. When Hilda 
was about he followed every movement of hers with 
his eyes, so that his strange conduct lacked no expla- 
nation nor interpretation, in the minds of the women 
at least. Thrice he redeemed his reputation for being 
an interesting character by conducting the party on 
little expeditions here and there about the country. 
Then his woodcraft and resourcefulness spoke for him. 
They asked him about the lumbering operations, but 
he seemed indifferent. 

“ Nothing to interest you,” he affirmed. “ We’re 
just cutting roads now. You ought to be here for the 
drive.” 

To him there was really nothing interesting in the 
cutting of roads nor the clearing of streams. It was 
all in a day’s work. 

Once he took them over to see Camp One. They 
were immensely pleased, and were correspondingly 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


290 

loud in exclamations. Thorpe’s comments were brief 
and dry. After the noon dinner he had the unfortu- 
nate idea of commending the singing of one of the 
men. 

“ Oh, I’d like to hear him,” cried Elizabeth Carpen- 
ter. “ Can’t you get him to sing for us, Mr. Thorpe ? ” 

Thorpe went to the men’s camp, where he singled 
out the unfortunate lumber-jack in question. 

“ Come on, Archie,” he said. “ The ladies want to 
hear you sing.” 

The man objected, refused, pleaded, and finally 
obeyed what amounted to a command. Thorpe re- 
entered the office with triumph, his victim in tow. 

“ This is Archie Harris,” he announced heartily. 
“ He’s our best singer just now. Take a chair, 
Archie.” 

The man perched on the edge of the chair and looked 
straight out before him. 

“ Do sing for us, won’t you, Mr. Harris ? ” requested 
Mrs. Cary in her sweetest tones. 

The man said nothing, nor moved a muscle, but 
turned a brick-red. An embarrassed silence of expec- 
tation ensued. 

“ Hit her up, Archie,” encouraged Thorpe. 

“ I ain’t much in practice no how,” objected the man 
in a little voice, without moving. 

“ I’m sure you’ll find us very appreciative,” said 
Elizabeth Carpenter. 

“ Give us a song, Archie, let her go,” urged Thorpe 
impatiently. 

“ All right,” replied the man very meekly. 

Another silence fell. It got to be a little awful. The 
poor woodsman, pilloried before the regards of this 
polite circle, out of his element, suffering cruelly, 
nevertheless made no sign nor movement one way or 
the other. At last when the situation had almost 
reached the breaking point of hysteria, he began. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 291 

His voice ordinarily was rather a good tenor. Now 
he pitched it too high ; and went on straining at the 
high notes to the very end. Instead of offering one 
of the typical woods chanteys, he conceived that before 
so grand an audience he should give something fancy. 
He therefore struck into a sentimental song of the 
cheap music-hall type. There were nine verses, and 
he drawled through them all, hanging whiningly on 
the nasal notes in the fashion of the untrained singer. 
Instead of being a performance typical of the strange 
woods genius, it was merely an atrocious bit of cheap 
sentimentalism, badly rendered. 

The audience listened politely. When the song was 
finished it murmured faint thanks. 

“ Oh, give us ‘ Jack Haggerty/ Archie,” urged 
Thorpe. 

But the woodsman rose, nodded his head awkward- 
ly, and made his escape. He entered the men’s camp 
swearing, and for the remainder of the day made none 
but blasphemous remarks. 

The beagles, however, were a complete success. 
They tumbled about, and lolled their tongues, and 
laughed up out of a tangle of themselves in a fascinat- 
ing manner. Altogether the visit to Camp One was 
a success, the more so in that on the way back, for the 
first time, Thorpe found that chance — and Mrs. Cary 
— had allotted Hilda to his care. 

A hundred yards down the trail they encountered 
Phil. The dwarf stopped short, looked attentively at 
the girl, and then softly approached. When quite near 
to her he again stopped, gazing at her with his soul 
in his liquid eyes. 

“ You are more beautiful than the sea at night,” he 
said directly. 

The others laughed. “There’s sincerity for you, 
Miss Hilda,” said young Mr. Morton. 

“ Who is he ? ” asked the girl after they had moved 

on. 


292 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ Our chore-boy,” answered Thorpe with great 
brevity, for he was thinking of something much more 
important. 

After the rest of the party had gone ahead, leaving 
them sauntering more slowly down the trail, he gave 
it voice. 

“ Why don’t you come to the pine grove any 
more? ” he asked bluntly. 

“ Why ? ” countered Hilda in the manner of women. 

“ I want to see you there. I want to talk with you. 
I can’t talk with all that crowd around.” 

“ I’ll come to-morrow,” she said — then with a little 
mischievous laugh, “ if that’ll make you talk.” 

“ You must think I’m awfully stupid,” agreed 
Thorpe bitterly. 

“ Ah, no ! Ah, no ! ” she protested softly. “ You 
must not say that.” 

She was looking at him very tenderly, if he had only 
known it, but he did not, for his face was set in discon- 
tented lines straight before him. 

“ It is true,” he replied. 

They walked on in silence, while gradually the dan- 
gerous fascination of the woods crept down on them. 
Just before sunset a hush falls on nature. The wind 
has died, the birds have not yet begun their evening 
songs, the light itself seems to have left off sparkling 
and to lie still across the landscape. Such a hush 
now lay on their spirits. Over the way a creeper was 
droning sleepily a little chant, — the only voice in the 
wilderness. In the heart of the man, too, a little voice 
raised itself alone. 

“ Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart ! ” it breathed 
over and over again. After a while he said it gently 
in a half voice. 

“ No, no, hush ! ” said the girl, and she laid the soft, 
warm fingers of one hand across his lips, and looked 
at him from a height of superior soft-eyed tenderness 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 293 

as a woman might look at a child. “ You must not. 
It is not right.” 

Then he kissed the fingers very gently before they 
were withdrawn, and she said nothing at all in rebuke, 
but looked straight before her with troubled eyes. 

The voices of evening began to raise their jubilant 
notes. From a tree nearby the olive thrush sang like 
clockwork ; over beyond carolled eagerly a black- 
throat, a myrtle warbler, a dozen song sparrows, and 
a hundred vireos and creepers. Down deep in the 
blackness of the ancient woods a hermit thrush uttered 
his solemn bell note, like the tolling of the spirit of 
peace. And in Thorpe’s heart a thousand tumultuous 
voices that had suddenly roused to clamor, died into 
nothingness at the music of her softly protesting voice. 


Chapter XLII 


r HORPE returned to Camp One shortly after 
dark. He found there Scotty Parsons, who 
had come up to take charge of the crew en- 
gaged in clearing French Creek. The man brought 
him a number of letters sent on by Collins, among 
which was one from Wallace Carpenter. 

After commending the camping party to his com- 
panion’s care, and giving minute directions as to how 
and where to meet it, the young fellow went on to say 
that affairs were going badly on the Board. 

“ Some interest that I haven’t been able to make out 
yet has been hammering our stocks down day after 
day,” he wrote. “ I don’t understand it, for the stocks 
are good — they rest on a solid foundation of value — 
and intrinsically are worth more than is bid for them 
right now. Some powerful concern is beating them 
down for a purpose of its own. Sooner or later they 
will let up, and then we’ll get things back in good 
shape. I am amply protected now, thanks to you, and 
am not at all afraid of losing my holdings. The only 
difficulty is that I am unable to predict exactly when 
the other fellows will decide that they have accom- 
plished whatever they are about, and let up. It may 
not be before next year. In that case I couldn’t help 
you out on those notes when they come due. So put 
in your best licks, old man. You may have to pony 
up for a little while, though of course sooner or later 
I can put it all back. Then, you bet your life, I keep 
out of it. Lumbering’s good enough for yours truly. 

“ By the way, you might shine up to Hilda Farrand 
294 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 295 

and join the rest of the fortune-hunters. She’s got it 
to throw to the birds, and in her own right. Seriously, 
old fellow, don’t put yourself into a false position 
through ignorance. Not that there is any danger to 
a hardened old woodsman like you.” 

Thorpe went to the group of pines by the pole trail 
the following afternoon because he had said he would, 
but with a new attitude of mind. He had come into 
contact with the artificiality of conventional relations, 
and it stiffened him. No wonder she had made him 
keep silence the afternoon before ! She had done it 
gently and nicely, to be sure, but that was part of her 
good-breeding. Hilda found him formal, reserved, 
polite ; and marvelled at it. In her was no coquetry. 
She was as straightforward and sincere as the look of 
her eyes. 

They sat down on a log. Hilda turned to him with 
her graceful air of confidence. 

“ Now talk to me,” said she. 

“ Certainly,” replied Thorpe in a practical tone of 
voice, “ what do you want me to talk about ? ” 

She shot a swift, troubled glance at him, concluded 
herself mistaken, and said : 

“ Tell me about what you do up here — your life — 
all about it.” 

“ Well — ” replied Thorpe formally, “we haven’t 
much to interest a girl like you. It is a question of 
saw logs with us ” — and he went on in his dryest, most 
technical manner to detail the process of manufacture. 
It might as well have been bricks. 

The girl did not understand. She was hurt. As 
surely as the sun tangled in the distant pine frond, she 
had seen in his eyes a great passion. Now it was 
coldly withdrawn. 

“ What has happened to you ? ” she asked finally out 
of her great sincerity. 

“ Me? Nothing,” replied Thorpe. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


296 

A forced silence fell upon him. Hilda seemed grad- 
ually to lose herself in reverie. After a time she said 
softly. 

“ Don’t you love this woods ? ” 

“ It’s an excellent bunch of pine,” replied Thorpe 
bluntly. “ It’ll cut three million at least.” 

“ Oh ! ” she cried drawing back, her hands pressed 
against the log either side of her, her eyes wide. 

After a moment she caught her breath convulsively, 
and Thorpe became conscious that she was studying 
him furtively with a quickening doubt. 

After that, by the mercy of God, there was no more 
talk between them. She was too hurt and shocked 
and disillusioned to make the necessary effort to go 
away. He was too proud to put an end to the posi- 
tion. They sat there apparently absorbed in thought, 
while all about them the accustomed life of the woods 
drew nearer and nearer to them, as the splash of their 
entrance into it died away. 

A red squirrel poised thirty feet above them, leaped, 
and clung swaying to a sapling-top a dozen yards from 
the tree he had quitted. Two chickadees upside down 
uttering liquid undertones, searched busily for insects 
next their heads. Wilson’s warblers, pine creepers, 
black-throats, myrtle and magnolia warblers, oven 
birds, peewits, blue jays, purple finches, passed silently 
or noisily, each according to his kind. Once a lone 
spruce hen dusted herself in a stray patch of sunlight 
until it shimmered on a tree trunk, raised upward, and 
disappeared, to give place to long level dusty shafts 
that shot here and there through the pines laying the 
spell of sunset on the noisy woods brawlers. 

Unconsciously the first strain of opposition and of 
hurt surprise had relaxed. Each thought vaguely his 
thoughts. Then in the depths of the forest, perhaps 
near at hand, perhaps far away, a single hermit thrush 
began to sing. His song was of three solemn deep 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


297 

liquid notes ; followed by a slight rhetorical pause as 
of contemplation; and then, deliberately, three notes 
more on a different key — and so on without haste and 
without pause. It is the most dignified, the most spir- 
itual, the holiest of woods utterances. Combined with 
the evening shadows and the warm soft air, it offered 
to the heart an almost irresistible appeal. The man’s 
artificial antagonism modified ; the woman’s disen- 
chantment began to seem unreal. 

Then subtly over and through the bird-song another 
sound became audible. At first it merely repeated the 
three notes faintly, like an echo, but with a rich, sad 
undertone that brought tears. Then, timidly and still 
softly, it elaborated the theme, weaving in and out 
through the original three the glitter and shimmer of 
a splendid web of sound, spreading before the awak- 
ened imagination a broad river of woods-imagery that 
reflected on its surface all the subtler moods of the 
forest. The pine shadows, the calls of the wild creat- 
ures, the flow of the brook, the splashes of sunlight 
through the trees, the sigh of the wind, the shout of 
the rapid, — all these were there, distinctly to be felt 
in their most ethereal and beautiful forms. And yet 
it was all slight and tenuous as though the crack of a 
twig would break it through — so that over it contin- 
ually like a grand full organ-tone repeated the notes 
of the bird itself. 

With the first sigh of the wonder-music the girl had 
started and caught her breath in the exquisite pleasure 
of it. As it went on they both forgot everything but 
the harmony and each other. 

“ Ah, beautiful ! ” she murmured. 

“ What is it ? ” he whispered marvelling. 

“ A violin, — played by a master.” 

The bird suddenly hushed, and at once the strain 
abandoned the woods-note and took another motif. 
At first it played softly in the higher notes, a tinkling, 


298 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

lightsome little melody that stirred a kindly surface- 
smile over a full heart. Then suddenly, without tran- 
sition, it dropped to the lower register, and began to 
sob and wail in the full vibrating power of a great 
passion. 

And the theme it treated was love. It spoke sol- 
emnly, fearfully of the greatness of it, the glory. 
These as abstractions it amplified in fine full-breathed 
chords that swept the spirit up and up as on the waves 
of a mighty organ. Then one by one the voices of 
other things were heard, — the tinkling of laughter, the 
roar of a city, the sob of a grief, a cry of pain suddenly 
shooting across the sound, the clank of a machine, the 
tumult of a river, the puff of a steamboat, the murmur- 
ing of a vast crowd, — and one by one, without seem- 
ing in the least to change their character, they merged 
imperceptibly into, and were part of the grand- 
breathed chords, so that at last all the fames and ambi- 
tions and passions of the world came, in their apoth- 
eosis, to be only parts of the master-passion of them 
all. 

And while the echoes of the greater glory still swept 
beneath their uplifted souls like ebbing waves, so that 
they still sat rigid and staring with the majesty of it, 
the violin softly began to whisper. Beautiful it was as 
a spirit, beautiful beyond words, beautiful beyond 
thought. Its beauty struck sharp at the heart. And 
they two sat there hand in hand dreaming — dreaming 
— dreaming 

At last the poignant ecstasy seemed slowly, slowly 
to die. Fainter and fainter ebbed the music. Through 
it as through a mist the solemn aloof forest began to 
show to the consciousness of the two. They sought 
each other’s eyes gently smiling. The music was very 
soft and dim and sad. They leaned to each other with 
a sob. Their lips met. The music ceased. 

Alone in the forest side by side they looked out to- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 299 

gether for a moment into that eternal vision which 
lovers only are permitted to see. The shadows fell. 
About them brooded the inscrutable pines stretching 
a canopy over them enthroned. A single last shaft 
of the sun struck full upon them, a single light-spot 
in the gathering gloom. They were beautiful. 

And over behind the trees, out of the light and the 
love and the beauty, little Phil huddled, his great 
shaggy head bowed in his arms. Beside him lay his 
violin, and beside that his bow, broken. He had 
snapped it across his knee. That day he had heard 
at last the Heart Song of the Violin, and uttering it, 
had bestowed love. But in accordance with his proph- 
ecy he had that day lost what he cared for most in all 
the world, his friend. 


Chapter XLIII 


r HAT was the moon of delight. The days 
passed through the hazy forest like stately fig- 
ures from an old masque. In the pine grove 
on the knoll the man and the woman had erected a 
temple to love, and love showed them one to the other. 

In Hilda Farrand was no guile, no coquetry, no de- 
ceit. So perfect was her naturalism that often by those 
who knew her least she was considered affected. Her 
trust in whomever she found herself with attained so 
directly its reward ; her unconsciousness of pose was 
so rhythmically graceful; her ignorance and innocence 
so triumphantly effective, that the mind with difficulty 
rid itself of the belief that it was all carefully studied. 
This was not true. She honestly did not know that 
she was beautiful ; was unaware of her grace ; did not 
realize the potency of her wealth. 

This absolute lack of self-consciousness was most 
potent in overcoming Thorpe’s natural reticence. He 
expanded to her. She came to idolize him in a man- 
ner at once inspiring and touching in so beautiful a 
creature. In him she saw reflected all the lofty at- 
tractions of character which she herself possessed, but 
of which she was entirely unaware. Through his 
words she saw to an ideal. His most trivial actions 
were ascribed to motives of a dignity which would 
have been ridiculous, if it had not been a little pathetic. 
The woods-life, the striving of the pioneer kindled her 
imagination. She seized upon the great facts of them 
and fitted those facts with reasons of her own. Her 
insight perceived the adventurous spirit, the battle- 
300 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 °' 

courage, the indomitable steadfastness which always 
in reality lie back of these men of the frontier to urge 
them into the life ; and of them constructed conscious 
motives of conduct. To her fancy the lumbermen, of 
whom Thorpe was one, were self-conscious agents of 
advance. They chose hardship, loneliness, the stren- 
uous life because they wished to clear the way for a 
higher civilization. To her it seemed a great and 
noble sacrifice. She did not perceive that while all 
this is true, it is under the surface, the real spur is a 
desire to get on, and a hope of making money. For, 
strangely enough, she differentiated sharply the life 
and the reasons for it. An existence in subduing the 
forest was to her ideal; the making of a fortune 
through a lumbering firm she did not consider in the 
least important. That this distinction was most po- 
tent, the sequel will show. 

In all of it she was absolutely sincere, and not at all 
stupid. She had always had all she could spend, with- 
out question. Money meant nothing to her, one way 
or the other. If need was, she might have experi- 
enced some difficulty in learning how to economize, 
but none at all in adjusting herself to the necessity of 
it. The material had become, in all sincerity, a basis 
for the spiritual. She recognized but two sorts of mo- 
tives ; of which the ideal, comprising the poetic, the 
daring, the beautiful, were good ; and the material, 
meaning the sordid and selfish, were bad. With her 
the mere money-getting would have to be allied with 
some great and poetic excuse. 

That is the only sort of aristocracy, in the popular 
sense of the word, which is real ; the only scorn of 
money which can be respected. 

There are some faces which symbolize to the be- 
holder many subtleties of soul-beauty which by no 
other method could gain expression. Those subtle- 
ties may not, probably do not, exist in the possessor 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 02 

of the face. The power of such a countenance lies 
not so much in what it actually represents, as in the 
suggestion it holds out to another. So often it is with 
a beautiful character. Analyze it carefully, and you 
will reduce it generally to absolute simplicity and ab- 
solute purity — two elements common enough in adul- 
teration ; but place it face to face with a more complex 
personality, and mirror-like it will take on a hundred 
delicate shades of ethical beauty, while at the same 
time preserving its own lofty spirituality. 

Thus Hilda Farrand reflected Thorpe. In the clear 
mirror of her heart his image rested transfigured. It 
was as though the glass were magic, so that the gross 
and material was absorbed and lost, while the more 
spiritual qualities reflected back. So the image was 
retained in its entirety, but etherealized, refined. It 
is necessary to attempt, even thus faintly and inade- 
quately, a sketch of Hilda’s love, for a partial under- 
standing of it is necessary to the comprehension of 
what followed the moon of delight. 

That moon saw a variety of changes. 

The bed of French Creek was cleared. Three of the 
roads were finished, and the last begun. So much for 
the work of it. 

Morton and Cary shot four deer between them, 
which was unpardonably against the law, caught fish 
in plenty, smoked two and a half pounds of tobacco, 
and read half of one novel. Mrs. Cary and Miss Car- 
penter walked a total of over a hundred miles, bought 
twelve pounds of Indian work of all sorts, embroidered 
the circle of two embroidery frames, learned to paddle 
a birch-bark canoe, picked fifteen quarts of berries, and 
gained six pounds in weight. All the party together 
accomplished five picnics, four explorations, and thirty 
excellent campfires in the evening. So much for the 
fun of it. 

Little Phil disappeared utterly, taking with him his 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3°3 

violin, but leaving his broken bow. Thorpe has it 
even to this day. The lumberman caused search and 
inquiry on all sides. The cripple was never heard of 
again. He had lived his brief hour, taken his subtle 
artist’s vengeance of misplayed notes on the crude ap- 
preciation of men too coarse-fibered to recognize it, 
brought together by the might of sacrifice and con- 
summate genius two hearts on the brink of misunder- 
standing; — now there was no further need for him, 
he had gone. So much for the tragedy of it. 

“ I saw you long ago,” said Hilda to Thorpe. 
“ Long, long ago, when I was quite a young girl. I 
had been visiting in Detroit, and was on my way all 
alone to catch an early train. You stood on the cor- 
ner thinking, tall and straight and brown, with a 
weatherbeaten old hat and a weatherbeaten old coat 
and weatherbeaten old moccasins, and such a proud, 
clear, undaunted look on your face. I have remem- 
bered you ever since.” 

And then he told her of the race to the Land Office, 
while her eyes grew brighter and brighter with the 
epic splendor of the story. She told him that she had 
loved him from that moment — and believed her tell- 
ing; while he, the unsentimental leader of men, per- 
suaded himself and her that he had always in some 
mysterious manner carried her image prophetically in 
his heart. So much for the love of it. 

In the last days of the month of delight Thorpe re- 
ceived a second letter from his partner, which to some 
i extent awakened him to the realities. 

“ My dear Harry,” it ran. “ I have made a startling 
discovery. The other fellow is Morrison. I have 
been a blind, stupid dolt, and am caught nicely. You 
can’t call me any more names than I have already 
called myself. Morrison has been in it from the start. 
By an accident I learned he was behind the fellow who 
induced me to invest, and it is he who has been ham- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3°4 

mering the stock down ever since. They couldn’t lick 
you at your game, so they tackled me at mine. I’m 
not the man you are, Harry, and I’ve made a mess of 
it. Of course their scheme is plain enough on the 
face of it. They’re going to involve me so deeply that 
I will drag the firm down with me. 

“ If you can fix it to meet those notes, they can’t 
do it. I have ample margin to cover any more de- 
clines they may be able to bring about. Don’t fret 
about that. Just as sure as you can pay that sixty 
thousand, just so sure we’ll be ahead of the game at 
this time next year. For God’s sake get a move on 
you, old man. If you don’t — good Lord ! The firm’ll 
bust because she can’t pay ; I’ll bust because I’ll have 
to let my stock go on margins — it’ll be an awful 
smash. But you’ll get there, so we needn’t worry. I’ve 
been an awful fool, and I’ve no right to do the getting 
into trouble and leave you to the hard work of getting 
out again. But as partner I’m going to insist on your 
having a salary — etc.” 

The news aroused all Thorpe’s martial spirit. Now 
at last the mystery surrounding Morrison & Daly’s 
unnatural complaisance was riven. It had come to 
grapples again. He was glad of it. Meet those notes ? 
Well I guess so ! He’d show them what sort of a 
proposition they had tackled. Sneaking, underhanded 
scoundrels ! taking advantage of a mere boy. Meet 
those notes? You bet he would; and then he’d go 
down there and boost those stocks until M. & D. 
looked like a last year’s bird’s nest. He thrust the 
letter in his pocket and walked buoyantly to the pines. 

The two lovers sat there all the afternoon drinking 
in half sadly the joy of the forest and of being near 
each other, for the moon of delight was almost done. 
In a week the camping party would be breaking up, 
and Hilda must return to the city. It was uncertain 
when they would be able to see each other again, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3°5 

though there was talk of getting up a winter party to 
visit Camp One in January. The affair would be 
unique. 

Suddenly the girl broke off and put her fingers to 
her lips. For some time, dimly, an intermittent and 
faint sound had been felt, rather than actually heard, 
like the irregular muffled beating of a heart. Gradu- 
ally it had insisted on the attention.. Now at last it 
broke through the film of consciousness. 

“ What is it? ” she asked. 

Thorpe listened. Then his face lit mightily with the 
joy of battle. 

“ My axmen,” he cried. “ They are cutting the 
road.” 

A faint call echoed. Then without warning, nearer 
at hand the sharp ring of an ax sounded through the 
forest. 

















THE 

BLAZED 

TRAIL 

r 

Part V 

The Following of the Trail 

r r 






















Chapter XLIV 


M. a moment they sat listening to the clear 

ry staccato knocking of the distant blows, and the 
JL more forceful thuds of the man nearer at hand. 
A bird or so darted from the direction of the sound 
and shot silently into the thicket behind them. 

“What are they doing? Are they cutting lum- 
ber? ” asked Hilda. 

“ No,” answered Thorpe, “ we do not cut saw logs 
at this time of year. They are clearing out a road.” 

“ Where does it go to ? ” 

“ Well, nowhere in particular. That is, it is a log- 
ging road that starts at the river and wanders up 
through the woods where the pine is.” 

“ How clear the axes sound. Can’t we go down and 
watch them a little while ? ” 

“ The main gang is a long distance away ; sound 
carries very clearly in this still air. As for that fellow 
you hear so plainly, he is only clearing out small stuff 
to get ready for the others. You wouldn’t see any- 
thing different from your Indian chopping the cord- 
wood for your camp fire. He won’t chop out any big 
trees.” 

“ Let’s not go, then,” said Hilda submissively. 

“ When you come up in the winter,” he pursued, 
“ you will see any amount of big timber felled.” 

“ I would like to know more about it,” she sighed, 
a quaint little air of childish petulance gravin^ two 
lines between her eyebrows. “ Do you know, Harry, 
you are a singularly uncommunicative sort of being. 
I have to guess that your life is interesting and pic- 
309 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 10 

turesque, — that is,” she amended, “ I should have to 
do so if Wallace Carpenter had not told me a little 
something about it. Sometimes I think you are not 
nearly poet enough for the life you are living. Why, 
you are wonderful, you men of the north, and you let 
us ordinary mortals who have not the gift of divina- 
tion imagine you entirely occupied with how many 
pounds of iron chain you are going to need during the 
winter.” She said these things lightly as one who 
speaks things not for serious belief. 

“ It is something that way,” he agreed with a laugh. 

“ Do you know, sir,” she persisted, “ that I really 
don’t know anything at all about the life you lead here ? 
From what I have seen, you might be perpetually oc- 
cupied in eating things in a log cabin, and in disappear- 
ing to perform some mysterious rites in the forest.” 
She looked at him with a smiling mouth but tender 
eyes, her head tilted back slightly. 

“ It’s a good deal that way, too,” he agreed again. 
“ We use a barrel of flour in Camp One every two and 
a half days ! ” 

She shook her head in a faint negation that only 
half understood what he was saying, her whole heart 
in her tender gaze. 

“ Sit there,” she breathed very softly, pointing to the 
dried needles on which her feet rested, but without 
altering the position of her head or the steadfastness 
of her look. 

He obeyed. 

“Now tell me,” she breathed, still in the fascinated 
monotone. 

“ What? ” he inquired. 

“ Your life; what you do; all about it. You must 
tell me a story.” 

Thorpe settled himself more lazily, and laughed with 
quiet enjoyment. Never had he felt the expansion of 
a similar mood. The barrier between himself and self- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 U 

expression had faded, leaving not the smallest debris 
of the old stubborn feeling. 

“ The story of the woods,” he began, “ the story of 
the saw log. It would take a bigger man than I to 
tell it. I doubt if any one man ever would be big 
enough. It is a drama, a struggle, a battle. Those 
men you hear there are only the skirmishers extend- 
ing the firing line. We are fighting always with 
Time. I’ll have to hurry now to get those roads done 
and a certain creek cleared before the snow. Then 
we’ll have to keef on the keen move to finish our cut- 
ting before the deep snow ; to haul our logs before the 
spring thaws ; to float them down the river while the 
freshet water lasts. When we gain a day we have 
scored a victory; when the wilderness puts us back 
an hour, we have suffered a defeat. Our ammunition 
is Time ; our small shot the minutes, our heavy ord- 
nance the hours ! ” 

The girl placed her hand on his shoulder. He cov- 
ered it with his own. 

“ But we win ! ” he cried. “ We win ! ” 

“ That is what I like,” she said softly, “ — the strong 
spirit that wins ! ” She hesitated, then went on gently, 
“ But the battlefields, Harry ; to me they are dreadful. 
I went walking yesterday morning, before you came 
over, and after a while I found myself in the most 
awful place. The stumps of trees, the dead branches, 
the trunks lying all about, and the glaring hot sun over 
everything ! Harry, there was not a single bird in all 
that waste, a single green thing. You don’t know how 
it affected me so early in the morning. I saw just one 
* lonesome pine tree that had been left for some reason 
or another, standing there like a sentinel. I could 
shut my eyes and see all the others standing, and al- 
most hear the birds singing and the wind in the 
branches, just as it is here.” She seized his fingers in 
her other hand. “ Harry,” she said earnestly, “ I don’t 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 12 

believe I can ever forget that experience, any more 
than I could have forgotten a battlefield, were I to see 
one. I can shut my eyes now, and can see this place, 
our dear little wooded knoll wasted and blackened as 
that was.” 

The man twisted his shoulder uneasily and withdrew 
his hand. 

“ Harry,” she said again, after a pause, “ you must 
promise to leave this woods until the very last. I 
suppose it must all be cut down some day, but I do not 
want to be here to see after it is all over.” 

Thorpe remained silent. 

“ Men do not care much for keepsakes, do they, 
Harry? — they don’t save letters and flowers as we 
girls do — but even a man can feel the value of a great 
beautiful keepsake such as this, can’t he, dear? Our 
meeting-place — do you remember how I found you 
down there by the old pole trail, staring as though you 
had seen a ghost? — and that beautiful, beautiful 
music ! It must always be our most sacred memory. 
Promise me you will save it until the very, very 
last.” 

Thorpe said nothing because he could not rally his 
faculties. The sentimental association connected with 
the grove had actually never occurred to him. His 
keepsakes were impressions which he carefully guard- 
ed in his memory. To the natural masculine indiffer- 
ence toward material bits of sentiment he had added 
the instinct of the strictly portable early developed in 
the rover. He had never even possessed a photograph 
of his sister. Now this sudden discovery that such 
things might be part of the woof of another person’s 
spiritual garment came to him ready-grown to the 
proportions of a problem. 

In selecting the districts for the season’s cut, he had 
included in his estimates this very grove. Since then 
he had seen no reason for changing his decision. The 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3*3 

operations would not commence until winter. By 
that time the lovers would no longer care to use it as 
at present. Now rapidly he passed in review a dozen 
expedients by which his plan might be modified to 
permit of the grove’s exclusion. His practical mind 
discovered flaws in every one. Other bodies of timber 
promising a return of ten thousand dollars were not 
to be found near the river, and time now lacked for 
the cutting of roads to more distant forties. 

“ Hilda,” he broke in abruptly at last, “ the men you 
hear are clearing a road to this very timber.” 

“ What do you mean? ” she asked. 

“ This timber is marked for cutting this very win- 
ter.” 

She had not a suspicion of the true state of affairs. 
“ Isn’t it lucky I spoke of it ! ” she exclaimed. “ How 
could you have forgotten to countermand the order! 
You must see to it to-day ; now ! ” 

She sprang up impulsively and stood waiting for 
him. He arose more slowly. Even before he spoke 
her eyes dilated with the shock from her quick intui- 
tions. 

“ Hilda, I cannot,” he said. 

She stood very still for some seconds. 

“ Why not ? ” she asked quietly. 

“ Because I have not time to cut a road through to 
another bunch of pine. It is this or nothing.” 

“ Why not nothing, then ? ” 

“ I want the money this will bring.” 

His choice of a verb was unfortunate. The employ- 
ment of that one little word opened the girl’s mind to 
a flood of old suspicions which the frank charm of the 
northland had thrust outside. Hilda Farrand was an 
heiress and a beautiful girl. She had been constantly 
reminded of the one fact by the attempts of men to use 
flattery of the other as a key to her heart and her fort- 
une. From early girlhood she had been sought by the 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 l 4 

brilliant impecunious of two continents. The con- 
tinued experience had varnished her self-esteem with 
a glaze of cynicism sufficiently consistent to protect it 
against any but the strongest attack. She believed in 
no man’s protestations. She distrusted every man’s 
motives as far as herself was concerned. This attitude 
of mind was not unbecoming in her for the simple 
reason that it destroyed none of her graciousness as 
regards other human relations besides that of love. 
That men should seek her in matrimony from a selfish 
motive was as much to be expected as that flies should 
seek the sugar bowl. She accepted the fact as one of 
nature’s laws, annoying enough but inevitable ; a 
thing to guard against, but not one of sufficient mo- 
ment to grieve over. 

With Thorpe, however, her suspicions had been 
lulled. There is something virile and genuine about 
the woods and the men who inhabit them that strongly 
predisposes the mind to accept as proved in their en- 
tirety all the other virtues. Hilda had fallen into this 
state of mind. She endowed each of the men whom 
she encountered with all the robust qualities she had 
no difficulty in recognizing as part of nature’s charm 
in the wilderness. Now at a word her eyes were 
opened to what she had done. She saw that she had 
assumed unquestioningly that her lover possessed the 
qualities of his environment. 

Not for a moment did she doubt the reality of her 
love. She had conceived one of those deep, uplifting 
passions possible only to a young girl. But her cyni- 
cal experience warned her that the reality of that pas- 
sion’s object was not proven by any test besides the 
fallible one of her own poetizing imagination. The 
reality of the ideal she had constructed might be a van- 
ishable quantity even though the love of it was not. 
So to the interview that ensued she brought, not the 
partiality of a loving heart, nor even the impartiality 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3*5 

of one sitting in judgment, but rather the perverted 
prejudice of one who actually fears the truth. 

“Will you tell me for what you want the money? ” 
she asked. 

The young man caught the note of distrust. At 
once, instinctively, his own confidence vanished. He 
drew within himself, again beyond the power of justify- 
ing himself with the needed word. 

“ The firm needs it in the business,” said he. 

Her next question countered instantaneously. 

“ Does the firm need the money more than you do 
me r 

They stared at each other in the silence of the situa- 
tion that had so suddenly developed. It had come 
into being without their volition, as a dust cloud 
springs up on a plain. 

“ You do not mean that, Hilda,” said Thorpe quietly. 
“ It hardly comes to that.” 

“ Indeed it does,” she replied, every nerve of her fine 
organization strung to excitement. “ I should be 
more to you than any firm.” 

“ Sometimes it is necessary to look after the bread 
and butter,” Thorpe reminded her gently, although he 
knew that was not the real reason at all. 

“ If your firm can’t supply it, I can,” she answered. 
“ It seems strange that you won’t grant my first re- 
quest of you, merely because of a little money.” 

“ It isn’t a little money,” he objected, catching man- 
like at the practical question. “ You don’t realize what 
an amount a clump of pine like this stands for. Just 
in saw logs, before it is made into lumber, it will be 
worth about thirty thousand dollars, — of course 
there’s the expense of logging to pay out of that,” he 
added, out of his accurate business conservatism, “ but 
there’s ten thousand dollars’ profit in it.” 

The girl, exasperated by cold details at such a time, 
blazed out. “ I never heard anything so ridiculous in 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3' 6 

my life ! ” she cried. “ Either you are not at all the 
man I thought you, or you have some better reason 
than you have given. Tell me, Harry ; tell me at once. 
You don’t know what you are doing.” 

“ The firm needs it, Hilda,” said Thorpe, “ in order 
to succeed. If we do not cut this pine, we may 
fail.” 

In that he stated his religion. The duty of success 
was to him one of the loftiest of abstractions, for it 
measured the degree of a man’s efficiency in the sta- 
tion to which God had called him. The money, as 
such, was nothing to him. 

Unfortunately the girl had learned a different lan- 
guage. She knew nothing of the hardships, the strug- 
gles, the delight of winning for the sake of victory 
rather than the sake of spoils. To her, success meant 
getting a lot of money. The name by which Thorpe 
labelled his most sacred principle, to her represented 
something base and sordid. She had more money 
herself than she knew. It hurt her to the soul that 
the condition of a small money-making machine, as 
she considered the lumber firm, should be weighed 
even for an instant against her love. It was a great 
deal Thorpe’s fault that she so saw the firm. He might 
easily have shown her the great forces and principles 
for which it stood. 

“ If I were a man,” she said, and her voice was tense, 
“ if I were a man and loved a woman, I would be ready 
to give up everything for her. My riches, my pride, 
my life, my honor, my soul even, — they would be as 
nothing, as less than nothing to me, — if I loved. 
Harry, don’t let me think I am mistaken. Let this 
miserable firm of yours fail, if fail it must for lack of 
my poor little temple of dreams,” she held out her 
hands with a tender gesture of appeal. The affair had 
gone beyond the preservation of a few trees. It had 
become the question of an ideal. Gradually, in spite 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 l 7 

of herself, the conviction was forcing itself upon her 
that the man she had loved was no different from the 
rest ; that the greed of the dollar had corrupted him 
too. By the mere yielding to her wishes, she wanted 
to prove the suspicion wrong. 

Now the strange part of the whole situation was, 
that in two words Thorpe could have cleared it. If he 
had explained that he needed the ten thousand dollars 
to help pay a note given to save from ruin a foolish 
friend, he would have supplied to the affair just the 
higher motive the girl’s clear spirituality demanded. 
Then she would have shared enthusiastically in the 
sacrifice, and been the more loving and repentant from 
her momentary doubt. All she needed was that the 
man should prove himself actuated by a noble, instead 
of a sordid, motive. The young man did not say the 
two words, because in all honesty he thought them un- 
important. It seemed to him quite natural that he 
should go on Wallace Carpenter’s note. That fact 
altered not a bit the main necessity of success. It was 
a man’s duty to make the best of himself, — it was 
Thorpe’s duty to prove himself supremely efficient in 
his chosen calling ; the mere coincidence that his part- 
ner’s troubles worked along the same lines meant 
nothing to the logic of the situation. In stating baldly 
that he needed the money to assure the firm’s exist- 
ence, he imagined he had adduced the strongest possi- 
ble reason for his attitude. If the girl was not influ- 
enced by that, the case was hopeless. 

It was the difference of training rather than the dif- 
ference of ideas. Both clung to unselfishness as the 
highest reason for human action ; but each expressed 
the thought in a manner incomprehensible to the 
other. 

“ I cannot, Hilda,” he answered steadily. 

“ You sell me for ten thousand dollars ! I cannot 
believe it ! Harry ! Harry ! Must I put it to you as 


318 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

a choice? Don’t you love me enough to spare me 
that?” 

He did not reply. As long as it remained a dilem- 
ma, he would not reply. He was in the right. 

“ Do you need the money more than you do me ? 
more than you do love ? ” she begged, her soul in her 
eyes ; for she was begging also for herself. “ Think, 
Harry ; it is the last chance ! ” 

Once more he was face to face with a vital decision. 
To his surprise he discovered in his mind no doubt 
as to what the answer should be. He experienced no 
conflict of mind ; no hesitation ; for the moment, no 
regret. During all his woods life he had been follow- 
ing diligently the trail he had blazed for his conduct. 
Now his feet carried him unconsciously to the same 
end. There was no other way out. In the winter of 
his trouble the clipped trees alone guided him, and at 
the end of them he found his decision. It is in crises 
of this sort, when a little reflection or consideration 
would do wonders to prevent a catastrophe, that all 
the forgotten deeds, decisions, principles, and thoughts 
of a man’s past life combine solidly into the walls of 
fatality, so that in spite of himself he finds he must 
act in accordance with them. In answer to Hilda’s 
question he merely inclined his head. 

“ I have seen a vision,” said she simply, and lowered 
her head to conceal her eyes. Then she looked at him 
again. “ There can be nothing better than love,” she 
said. 

“ Yes, one thing,” said Thorpe, “ — the duty of suc- 
cess.” 

The man had stated his creed; the woman hers. 
The one is born perfect enough for love; the other 
must work, must attain the completeness of a fulfilled 
function, must succeed, to deserve it. 

She left him then, and did not see him again. Four 
days later the camping party left. Thorpe sent Tim 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 319 

Shearer over, as his most efficient man, to see that they 
got off without difficulty, but himself retired on some 
excuse to Camp Four. Three weeks gone in October 
he received a marked newspaper announcing the en- 
gagement of Miss Hilda Farrand to Mr. Hildreth 
Morton of Chicago. 

He had burned his ships, and stood now on an un- 
friendly shore. The first sacrifice to his jealous god 
had been consummated, and now, live or die, he stood 
pledged to win his fight. 


Chapter XLV 



INTER set in early and continued late; 
which in the end was a good thing for the 
year’s cut. The season was capricious, 


hanging for days at a time at the brink of a thaw, only to 
stiffen again into severe weather. This was trying on 
the nerves. For at each of these false alarms the six 
camps fell into a feverish haste to get the job finished 
before the break-up. It was really quite extraordinary 
how much was accomplished under the nagging spur 
of weather conditions and the cruel rowelling of 
Thorpe. 

The latter had now no thought beyond his work, 
and that was the thought of a madman. He had been 
stern and unyielding enough before, goodness knows, 
but now he was terrible. His restless energy perme- 
ated every molecule in the economic structure over 
which he presided, roused it to intense vibration. Not 
for an instant was there a resting spell. The veriest 
chore-boy talked, thought, dreamed of nothing but saw 
logs. Men whispered vaguely of a record cut. Team- 
sters looked upon their success or failure to keep near 
the top on the day’s haul as a signal victory or a dis- 
graceful defeat. The difficulties of snow, accident, 
topography which an ever-watchful nature threw 
down before the rolling car of this industry, were 
swept aside like straws. Little time was wasted and 
no opportunities. It did not matter how smoothly 
affairs happened to be running for the moment, every 
advantage, even the smallest, was eagerly seized Co 
advance the work. A drop of five degrees during 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 21 

the frequent warm spells brought out the sprinklers, 
even in dead of night ; an accident was white-hot in 
the forge almost before the crack of the iron had ceased 
to echo. At night the men fell into their bunks like 
sandbags, and their last conscious thought, if indeed 
they had any at all, was of eagerness for the morrow 
in order that they might push the grand total up an- 
other notch. It was madness ; but it was the madness 
these men loved. 

For now to his old religion Thorpe had added a fa- 
naticism, and over the fanaticism was gradually creep- 
ing a film of doubt. To the conscientious energy 
which a sense of duty supplied, was added the tremen- 
dous kinetic force of a love turned into other channels. 
And in the wild nights while the other men slept, 
Thorpe’s half-crazed brain was revolving over and 
over again the words of the sentence he had heard from 
Hilda’s lips : “There can be nothing better than love.” 

His actions, his mind, his very soul vehemently de- 
nied the proposition. He clung as ever to his high 
Puritanic idea of man’s purpose. But down deep in a 
very tiny, sacred corner of his heart a very small voice 
sometimes made itself heard when other, more militant 
voices were still : “ It may be ; it may be ! ” 

The influence of this voice was practically nothing. 
It made itself heard occasionally. Perhaps even, for 
the time being, its weight counted on the other side 
of the scale ; for Thorpe took pains to deny it fiercely, 
both directly and indirectly by increased exertions. 
But it persisted ; and once in a moon or so, when the 
conditions were quite favorable, it attained for an in- 
stant a shred of belief. 

Probably never since the Puritan days of New Eng- 
land has a community lived as sternly as did that win- 
ter of 1888 the six camps under Thorpe’s management. 
There was something a little inspiring about it. The 
men fronted their daily work with the same grim-faced, 


3 22 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


clear-eyed steadiness of veterans going into battle; 
with the same confidence, the same sure patience that 
disposes effectively of one thing before going on to the 
next. There was little merely excitable bustle ; there 
was no rest. Nothing could stand against such a spirit. 
Nothing did. The skirmishers which the wilderness 
threw out, were brushed away. Even the inevitable 
delays seemed not so much stoppages as the instant’s 
pause of a heavy vehicle in a snow drift, succeeded by 
the momentary acceleration as the plunge carried it 
through. In the main, and by large, the machine 
moved steadily and inexorably. 

And yet one possessed of the finer spiritual intui- 
tions could not have shaken off the belief in an impend- 
ing struggle. The feel of it was in the air. Nature’s 
forces were too mighty to be so slightly overcome ; the 
splendid energy developed in these camps too vast to 
be wasted on facile success. Over against each other 
were two great powers, alike in their calm confidence, 
animated with the loftiest and most dignified spirit of 
enmity. Slowly they were moving toward each other. 
The air was surcharged with the electricity of their op- 
position. Just how the struggle would begin was un- 
certain ; but its inevitability was as assured as its mag- 
nitude. Thorpe knew it, and shut his teeth, looking 
keenly about him. The Fighting Forty knew it, and 
longed for the grapple to come. The other camps 
knew it, and followed their leader with perfect trust. 
The affair was an epitome of the historic combats be- 
gun with David and Goliath. It was an affair of 
Titans. The little courageous men watched their en- 
emy with cat’s eyes. 

The last month of hauling was also one of snow. 
In this condition were few severe storms, but each day 
a little fell. By and by the accumulation amounted to 
much. In the woods where the wind could not get 
at it, it lay deep and soft above the tops of bushes. The 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 2 3 

grouse ate browse from the slender hardwood tips like 
a lot of goldfinches, or precipitated themselves head- 
long down through five feet of snow to reach the 
ground. Often Thorpe would come across the irregu- 
lar holes of their entrance. Then if he took the trou- 
ble to stamp about a little in the vicinity with his snow- 
shoes, the bird would spring unexpectedly from the 
clear snow, scattering a cloud with its strong wings. 
The deer, herded together, tramped “ yards ” where 
the feed was good. Between the yards ran narrow 
trails. When the animals went from one yard to an- 
other in these trails, their ears and antlers alone were 
visible. On either side of the logging roads the snow 
piled so high as to form a kind of rampart. When all 
this water in suspense should begin to flow, and to 
seek its level in the water-courses of the district, the 
logs would have plenty to float them, at least. 

So late did the cold weather last that, even with the 
added plowing to do, the six camps beat all records. 
On the banks at Camp One were nine million feet; 
the totals of all five amounted to thirty-three million. 
About ten million of this was on French Creek; the 
remainder on the main banks of the Ossawinamakee. 
Besides this the firm up-river, Sadler & Smith, had put 
up some twelve million more. The drive promised to 
be quite an affair. 

About the fifteenth of April attention became 
strained. Every day the mounting sun made heavy 
attacks on the snow: every night the temperature 
dropped below the freezing point. The river began to 
show more air holes, occasional open places. About 
the center the ice looked worn and soggy. Someone 
saw a flock of geese high in the air. Then came rain. 

One morning early, Long Pine Jim came into the 
men’s camp bearing a huge chunk of tallow. This he 
held against the hot stove until its surface had soft- 
ened, when he began to swab liberal quantities of 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 2 4 

grease on his spiked river shoes, which he fished out 
from under his bunk. 

“ She’s cornin’, boys,” said he. 

He donned a pair of woolen trousers that had been 
chopped off at the knee, thick woolen stockings, and 
the river shoes. Then he tightened his broad leather 
belt about his heavy shirt, cocked his little hat over his 
ear, and walked over in the corner to select a peavey 
from the lot the blacksmith had just put in shape. A 
peavey is like a cant-hook except that it is pointed 
at the end. Thus it can be used either as a hook or a 
pike. At the same moment Shearer, similarly attired 
and equipped, appeared in the doorway. The opening 
of the portal admitted a roar of sound. The river was 
rising. 

“ Come on, boys, she’s on ! ” said he sharply. 

Outside, the cook and cookee were stowing articles 
in the already loaded wanigan. The scow contained 
tents, blankets, provisions, and a portable stove. It 
followed the drive, and made a camp wherever expedi- 
ency demanded. 

“ Lively, boys, lively ! ” shouted Thorpe. “ She’ll be 
down on us before we know it ! ” 

Above the soft creaking of dead branches in the wind 
sounded a steady roar, like the bellowing of a wild 
beast lashing itself to fury. The freshet was abroad, 
forceful with the strength of a whole winter’s accumu- 
lated energy. 

The men heard it and their eyes brightened with the 
lust of battle. They cheered. 


Chapter XLV1 


T the banks of the river, Thorpe rapidly issued 
his directions. The affair had been all pre- 



y m arranged. During the week previous he and 
his foremen had reviewed the situation, examining the 
state of the ice, the heads of water in the three dams. 
Immediately above the first rollways was Dam Three 
with its two wide sluices through which a veritable 
flood could be loosened at will ; then four miles farther 
lay the rollways of Sadler & Smith, the up-river firm ; 
and above them tumbled over a forty-five foot ledge 
the beautiful Siscoe Falls; these first rollways of 
Thorpe’s — spread in the broad marsh flat below the 
dam — contained about eight millions ; the rest of the 
season’s cut was scattered for thirty miles along the 
bed of the river. 

Already the ice cementing the logs together had be- 
gun to weaken. The ice had wrenched and tugged 
savagely at the locked timbers until they had, with a 
mighty effort, snapped asunder the bonds of their 
hibernation. Now a narrow lane of black rushing 
water pierced the rollways, to boil and eddy in the con- 
sequent jam three miles below. 

To the foremen Thorpe assigned their tasks, calling 
them to him one by one, as a general calls his aids. 

“ Moloney,” said he to the big Irishman, “ take your 
crew and break that jam. Then scatter your men 
down to within a mile of the pond at Dam Two, and 
see that the river runs clear. You can tent for a day 
or so at West Bend or some other point about half way 
down ; and after that you had better camp at the dam. 


326 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

Just as soon as you get logs enough in the pond, start 
to sluicing them through the dam. You won’t need 
more than four men there, if you keep a good head. 
You can keep your gates open five or six hours. And 
Moloney.” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ I want you to be careful not to sluice too long. 
There is a bar just below the dam, and if you try to 
sluice with the water too low, you’ll center and jam 
there, as sure as shooting.” 

Bryan Moloney turned on his heel and began to pick 
his way down stream over the solidly banked logs. 
Without waiting the command, a dozen men followed 
him. The little group bobbed away irregularly into 
the distance, springing lightly from one timber to the 
other, holding their quaintly-fashioned peaveys in the 
manner of a rope dancer’s balancing pole. At the 
lowermost limit of the rollways, each man pried a log 
into the water, and, standing gracefully erect on this 
unstable craft, floated out down the current to the 
scene of his dangerous labor. 

“ Kerlie,” went on Thorpe, “ your crew can break 
rollways with the rest until we get the river fairly filled, 
and then you can move on down stream as fast as you 
are needed. Scotty, you will have the rear. Tim and 
I will boss the river.” 

At once the signal was given to Ellis, the dam 
watcher. Ellis and his assistants thereupon began to 
pry with long iron bars at the ratchets of the heavy 
gates. The chore-boy bent attentively over the 
ratchet-pin, lifting it delicately to permit another inch 
of raise, dropping it accurately to enable the men at 
the bars to seize a fresh purchase. The river’s roar 
deepened. Through the wide sluiceways a torrent 
foamed and tumbled. Immediately it spread through 
the brush on either side to the limits of the freshet 
banks, and then gathered for its leap against the un- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 2 7 

easy rollways. Along the edge of the dark channel 
the face of the logs seemed to crumble away. Farther 
in towards the banks where the weight of timber still 
outbalanced the weight of the flood, the tiers grumbled 
and stirred, restless with the stream’s calling. Far 
down the river, where Bryan Moloney and his crew 
were picking at the jam, the water in eager streamlets 
sought the interstices between the logs, gurgling ex- 
citedly like a mountain brook. 

The jam creaked and groaned in response to the 
pressure. From its face a hundred jets of water 
spurted into the lower stream. Logs up-ended here 
and there, rising from the bristling surface slowly, like 
so many arms from lower depths. Above, the water 
eddied back foaming; logs shot down from the roll- 
ways, paused at the slackwater, and finally hit with a 
hollow and .resounding boom! against the tail of the 
jam. A moment later they too up-ended, so becom- 
ing an integral part of the chevaux de frise. 

The crew were working desperately. Down in the 
heap somewhere, two logs were crossed in such a man- 
ner as to lock the whole. They sought those logs. 

Thirty feet above the bed of the river six men 
clamped their peaveys into the soft pine ; jerking, pull- 
ing, lifting, sliding the great logs from their places. 
Thirty feet below, under the threatening face, six other 
men coolly picked out and set adrift, one by one, the 
timbers not inextricably imbedded. From time to 
time the mass creaked, settled, perhaps even moved 
a foot or two ; but always the practiced rivermen, after 
a glance, bent more eagerly to their work. 

Outlined against the sky, big Bryan Moloney stood 
directing the work. He had gone at the job on the 
bias of indirection, picking out a passage at either side 
that the center might the more easily “pull.” He knew 
by the tenseness of the log he stood on that, behind the 
jam, power had gathered sufficient to push the whole 


328 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

tangle down-stream. Now he was offering it the 
chance. 

Suddenly the six men below the jam scattered. 
Four of them, holding their peaveys across their bodies, 
jumped lightly from one floating log to another in the 
zigzag to shore. When they stepped on a small log 
they re-leaped immediately, leaving a swirl of foam 
where the little timber had sunk under them; when 
they encountered one larger, they hesitated for a barely 
perceptible instant. Thus their progression was of 
fascinating and graceful irregularity. The other two 
ran the length of their footing, and, overleaping an 
open of water, landed heavily and firmly on the very 
ends of two small floating logs. In this manner the 
force of the jump rushed the little timbers end-on 
through the water. The two men, maintaining mar- 
vellously their balance, were thus ferried to within 
leaping distance of the other shore. 

In the meantime a barely perceptible motion was 
communicating itself from one particle to another 
through the center of the jam. A cool and observant 
spectator might have imagined that the broad timber 
carpet was changing a little its pattern, just as the 
earth near the windows of an arrested railroad train 
seems for a moment to retrogress. The crew re- 
doubled its exertions, clamping its peaveys here and 
there, apparently at random, but in reality with the 
most definite of purposes. A sharp crack exploded im- 
mediately underneath. There could no longer exist 
any doubt as to the motion, although it was as yet slug- 
gish, glacial. Then in silence a log shifted — in silence 
and slowly — but with irresistible force. Jimmy 
Powers quietly stepped over it, just as it menaced his 
leg. Other logs in all directions up-ended. The jam 
crew were forced continually to alter their positions, 
riding the changing timbers bent-kneed, as a circus 
rider treads his four^galloping horses. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 329 

Then all at once down by the face something 
crashed. The entire stream became alive. It hissed 
and roared, it shrieked, groaned and grumbled. At 
first slowly, then more rapidly, the very forefront of 
the center melted inward and forward and downward 
until it caught the fierce rush of the freshet and shot 
out from under the jam. Far up-stream, bristling and 
formidable, the tons of logs, grinding savagely to- 
gether, swept forward. 

The six men and Bryan Moloney — who, it will be 
remembered, were on top — worked until the last mo- 
ment. When the logs began to cave under them so 
rapidly that even the expert rivermen found difficulty 
in “ staying on top,” the foreman set the example of 
hunting safety. 

“ She ‘ pulls,’ boys,” he yelled. 

Then in a manner wonderful to behold, through the 
smother of foam and spray, through the crash and yell 
of timbers protesting the flood’s hurrying, through the 
leap of destruction, the drivers zigzagged calmly and 
surely to the shore. 

All but Jimmy Powers. He poised tense and eager 
on the crumbling face of the jam. Almost immediate- 
ly he saw what he wanted, and without pause sprang 
boldly and confidently ten feet straight downward, to 
alight with accuracy on a single log floating free in the 
current. And then in the very glory and chaos of the 
jam itself he was swept down-stream. 

After a moment the constant acceleration in speed 
checked, then commenced perceptibly to slacken. At 
once the rest of the crew began to ride down-stream. 
Each struck the caulks of his river boots strongly into 
a log, and on such unstable vehicles floated miles with 
the current. From time to time, as Bryan Moloney 
indicated, one of them went ashore. There, usually at 
a bend of the stream where the likelihood of jamming 
was great, they took their stands. When necessary, 


33 ° 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


they ran out over the face of the river to separate a 
congestion likely to cause trouble. The rest of the 
time they smoked their pipes. 

At noon they ate from little canvas bags which had 
been filled that morning by the cookee. At sunset 
they rode other logs down the river to where their 
camp had been made for them. There they ate hugely, 
hung their ice-wet garments over a tall framework con- 
structed around a monster fire, and turned in on hem- 
lock branches. 

All night long the logs slipped down the moonlit 
current, silently, swiftly, yet without haste. The por- 
cupines invaded the sleeping camp. From the whole 
length of the river rang the hollow boom , boom , boom, 
of timbers striking one against the other. 

The drive was on. 


Chapter XLVII 

/ N the meantime the main body of the crew under 
Thorpe and his foremen were briskly tumbling the 
logs into the current. Sometimes under the urg- 
ing of the peaveys, but a single stick would slide down; 
or again a double tier would cascade with the roar of 
a little Niagara. The men had continually to keep on 
the tension of an alert, for at any moment they were 
called upon to exercise their best judgment and quick- 
ness to keep from being carried downward with the 
rush of the logs. Not infrequently a frowning sheer 
wall of forty feet would hesitate on the brink of plunge. 
Then Shearer himself proved his right to the title of 
riverman. 

Shearer wore caulks nearly an inch in length. He 
had been known to ride ten miles, without shifting his 
feet, on a log so small that he could carry it without 
difficulty. For cool nerve he was unexcelled. 

“ I don’t need you boys here any longer,” he said 
quietly. 

When the men had all withdrawn, he walked confi- 
dently under the front of the rollway, glancing with 
practiced eye at the perpendicular wall of logs over 
him. Then, as a man pries jack-straws, he clamped 
his peavey and tugged sharply. At once the rollway 
flattened and toppled. A mighty splash, a hurl of fly- 
ing foam and crushing timbers, and the spot on which 
the riverman had stood was buried beneath twenty feet 
of solid green wood. To Thorpe it seemed that 
Shearer must have been overwhelmed, but the river- 
man always mysteriously appeared at one side or the 
33i 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


33 2 

other, nonchalant, urging the men to work before the 
logs should have ceased to move. Tradition claimed 
that only once in a long woods life had Shearer been 
forced to “ take water ” before a breaking rollway : and 
then he saved his peavey. History stated that he had 
never lost a man on the river, simply and solely because 
he invariably took the dangerous tasks upon himself. 

As soon as the logs had caught the current, a dozen 
men urged them on. With their short peaveys, the 
drivers were enabled to prevent the timbers from 
swirling in the eddies — one of the first causes of a 
jam. At last, near the foot of the flats, they abandoned 
them to the stream, confident that Moloney and his 
crew would see to their passage down the river. 

In three days the rollways were broken. Now it 
became necessary to start the rear. 

For this purpose Billy Camp, the cook, had loaded 
his cook-stove, a quantity of provisions, and a supply 
of bedding, aboard a scow. The scow was built of 
tremendous hewn timbers, four or five inches thick, to 
withstand the shock of the logs. At either end were 
long sweeps to direct its course. The craft was per- 
haps forty feet long, but rather narrow, in order that 
it might pass easily through the chute of a dam. It 
was called the “ wanigan.” 

Billy Camp, his cookee, and his crew of two were 
now doomed to tribulation. The huge, unwieldy craft 
from that moment was to become possessed of the 
devil. Down the white water of rapids it would bump, 
smashing obstinately against boulders, impervious to 
the frantic urging of the long sweeps ; against the roots 
and branches of the streamside it would scrape with 
the perverseness of a vicious horse; in the broad 
reaches it would sulk, refusing to proceed ; and when 
expediency demanded its pause, it would drag Billy 
Camp and his entire crew at the rope’s end, while they 
tried vainly to snub it against successively uprooted 


THE BLAZED TRAIL, 


333 

trees and stumps. When at last the wanigan was 
moored fast for the night, — usually a mile or so below 
the spot planned, — Billy Camp pushed back his bat- 
tered old brown derby hat, the badge of his office, 
with a sigh of relief. To be sure he and his men had 
still to cut wood, construct cooking and camp fires, 
pitch tents, snip browse, and prepare supper for 
seventy men ; but the hard work of the day was over. 
Billy Camp did not mind rain or cold — he would 
cheerfully cook away with the water dripping from 
his battered derby to his chubby and cold-purpled 
nose — but he did mind the wanigan. And the worst 
of it was, he got no sympathy nor aid from the crew. 
From either bank he and his anxious struggling assist- 
ants were greeted with ironic cheers and facetious re- 
marks. The tribulations of the wanigan were’ as the 
salt of life to the spectators. 

Billy Camp tried to keep back of the rear in clear 
water, but when the wanigan so disposed, he found 
himself jammed close in the logs. There he had a 
chance in his turn to become spectator, and so to re- 
pay in kind some of the irony and facetiousness. 

Along either bank, among the bushes, on sandbars, 
and in trees, hundreds and hundreds of logs had been 
stranded when the main drive passed. These logs 
the rear crew were engaged in restoring to the cur- 
rent. 

And as a man had to be able to ride any kind of a 
log in any water ; to propel that log by jumping on it, 
by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting 
it as one would a canoe; to be skillful in pushing, pry- 
ing, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of 
the same cranky craft ; as he must be prepared at any 
and all times to jump waist deep into the river, to work 
in ice-water hours at a stretch ; as he was called upon 
to break the most dangerous jams on the river, repre- 
senting, as they did, the accumulation which the jam 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


334 

crew had left behind them, it was naturally considered 
the height of glory to belong to the rear crew. Here 
were the best of the Fighting Forty, — men with a 
reputation as “ white-water birlers ” — men afraid of 
nothing. 

Every morning the crews were divided into two sec- 
tions under Kerlie and Jack Hyland. Each crew had 
charge of one side of the river, with the task of clean- 
ing it thoroughly of all stranded and entangled logs. 
Scotty Parsons exercised a general supervisory eye 
over both crews. Shearer and Thorpe traveled back 
and forth the length of the drive, riding the logs down 
stream, but taking to a partly submerged pole trail 
when ascending the current. On the surface of the 
river in the clear water floated two long graceful boats 
called bateaux. These were in charge of expert boat- 
men, — men able to propel their craft swiftly forwards, 
backwards and sideways, through all kinds of water. 
They carried in racks a great supply of pike-poles, 
peaveys, axes, rope and dynamite, for use in various 
emergencies. Intense rivalry existed as to which crew 
“ sacked ” the farthest down stream in the course of 
the day. There was no need to urge the men. Some 
stood upon the logs, pushing mightily with the long 
pike-poles. Others, waist deep in the water, clamped 
the jaws of their peaveys into the stubborn timbers, 
and, shoulder bent, slid them slowly but surely into the 
swifter waters. Still others, lining up on either side 
of one of the great brown tree trunks, carried it bodily 
to its appointed place. From one end of the rear to 
the other, shouts, calls, warnings, and jokes flew back 
and forth. Once or twice a vast roar of Homeric 
laughter went up as some unfortunate slipped and 
soused into the water. When the current slacked, and 
the logs hesitated in their run, the entire crew hastened, 
bobbing from log to log, down river to see about it. 
Then they broke the jam, standing surely on the edge 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


335 

of the great darkness, while the ice water sucked in 
and out of their shoes. 

Behind the rear Big Junko poled his bateau back- 
wards and forwards exploding dynamite. Many of 
the bottom tiers of logs in the rollways had been 
frozen down, and Big Junko had to loosen them from 
the bed of the stream. He was a big man, this, as his 
nickname indicated, built of many awkwardnesses. 
His cheekbones were high, his nose flat, his lips thick 
and slobbery. He sported a wide, ferocious strag- 
gling mustache and long eye-brows, under which 
gleamed little fierce eyes. His forehead sloped back 
like a beast’s, but was always hidden by a disreputable 
felt hat. Big Junko did not know much, and had the 
passions of a wild animal, but he was a reckless river- 
man and devoted to Thorpe. Just now he exploded 
dynamite. 

The sticks of powder were piled amidships. Big 
Junko crouched over them, inserting the fuses and 
caps, closing the openings with soap, finally lighting 
them, and dropping them into the water alongside, 
where they immediately sank. Then a few strokes of 
a short paddle took him barely out of danger. He 
huddled down in his craft, waiting. One, two, three 
seconds passed. Then a hollow boom shook the 
stream. A cloud of water sprang up, strangely beau- 
tiful. After a moment the great brown logs rose sud- 
denly to the surface from below, one after the other, 
like leviathans of the deep. And Junko watched, dim- 
ly fascinated, in his rudimentary animal’s brain, by the 
sight of the power he had evoked to his aid. 

When night came the men rode down stream to 
where the wanigan had made camp. There they slept, 
often in blankets wetted by the wanigan’s eccentrici- 
ties, to leap to their feet at the first cry in early morn- 
ing. Some days it rained, in which case they were 
wet all the time. Almost invariably there was a jam 


336 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

to break, though strangely enough almost every one 
of the old-timers believed implicitly that “ in the full of 
the moon logs will run free at night.” 

Thorpe and Tim Shearer nearly always slept in a 
dog tent at the rear ; though occasionally they passed 
the night at Dam Two, where Bryan Moloney and his 
crew were already engaged in sluicing the logs through 
the chute. 

The affair was simple enough. Long booms ar- 
ranged in the form of an open V guided the drive to 
the sluice gate, through which a smooth apron of water 
rushed to turmoil in an eddying pool below. Two men 
tramped steadily backwards and forwards on the 
booms, urging the logs forward by means of long pike 
poles to where the suction could seize them. Below 
the dam, the push of the sluice water forced them sev- 
eral miles down stream, where the rest of Bryan Mo- 
loney’s crew took them in charge. 

Thus through the wide gate nearly three-quarters 
of a million feet an hour could be run — a quantity 
more than sufficient to keep pace with the exertions 
of the rear. The matter was, of course, more or less 
delayed by the necessity of breaking out such roll- 
ways as they encountered from time to time on the 
banks. At length, however, the last of the logs drift- 
ed into the wide dam pool. The rear had arrived at 
Dam Two, and Thorpe congratulated himself that one 
stage of his journey had been completed. Billy Camp 
began to worry about shooting the wanigan through 
the sluice-way. 


Chapter XL VIII 


r HE rear had been tenting at the dam for two 
days, and was about ready to break camp, when 
Jimmy Powers swung across the trail to tell 
them of the big jam. 

Ten miles along the river bed, the stream dropped 
over a little half-falls into a narrow, rocky gorge. It 
was always an anxious spot for the river drivers. In 
fact, the plunging of the logs head-on over the fall 
had so gouged out the soft rock below, that an eddy 
of great power had formed in the basin. Shearer and 
Thorpe had often discussed the advisability of con- 
structing an artificial apron of logs to receive the im- 
pact. Here, in spite of all efforts, the jam had formed, 
— first a little center of a few logs in the middle of the 
stream, dividing the current, and shunting the logs 
to right and left ; then “ wings ” growing out from 
either bank, built up from logs shunted too violently ; 
finally a complete stoppage of the channel, and the 
consequent rapid piling up as the pressure of the drive 
increased. Now the bed was completely filled, far 
above the level of the falls, by a tangle that defied the 
jam crew’s best efforts. 

The rear at once took the trail down the river. 
Thorpe and Shearer and Scotty Parsons looked over 
the ground. 

“ She may ‘ pull/ if she gets a good start,” decided 
Tim. 

Without delay the entire crew was set to work. 
Nearly a hundred men can pick a great many logs in 
the course of a day. Several times the jam started, 
337 


338 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

but always “ plugged ” before the motion had become 
irresistible. This was mainly because the rocky walls 
narrowed at a slight bend to the west, so that the drive 
was throttled, as it were. It was hoped that perhaps 
the middle of the jam might burst through here, leav- 
ing the wings stranded. The hope was groundless. 

“ We’ll have to shoot,” Shearer reluctantly decided. 

The men were withdrawn. Scotty Parsons cut a 
sapling twelve feet long, and trimmed it. Big Junko 
thawed his dynamite at a little fire, opening the ends 
of the packages in order that the steam generated 
might escape. Otherwise the pressure inside the oiled 
paper of the package was capable of exploding the 
whole affair. When the powder was warm, Scotty 
bound twenty of the cartridges around the end of the 
sapling, adjusted a fuse in one of them, and soaped 
the opening to exclude water. Then Big Junko thrust 
the long javelin down into the depths of the jam, leav- 
ing a thin stream of smoke behind him as he turned 
away. With sinister, evil eye he watched the smoke 
for an instant, then zigzagged awkwardly over the jam, 
the long, ridiculous tails of his brown cutaway coat 
flopping behind him as he leaped. A scant moment 
later the hoarse dynamite shouted. 

Great chunks of timber shot to an inconceivable 
height; entire logs lifted bodily into the air with the 
motion of a fish jumping; a fountain of water gleamed 
against the sun and showered down in fine rain. The 
jam shrugged and settled. That was all ; the “ shot ” 
had failed. 

The men ran forward, examining curiously the great 
hole in the log formation. 

“ We’ll have to flood her,” said Thorpe. 

So all the gates of the dam were raised, and the tor- 
rent tried its hand. It had no effect. Evidently the 
affair was not one of violence, but of patience. The 
crew went doggedly to work. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


339 

Day after day the clank , clank , clink of the peaveys 
sounded with the regularity of machinery. The only 
practicable method was to pick away the flank logs, 
leaving a long tongue pointing down-stream from 
the center to start when it would. This happened 
time and again, but always failed to take with it 
the main jam. It was cruel hard work; a man who 
has lifted his utmost strength into a peavey knows 
that. Any but the Fighting Forty would have grum- 
bled. 

Collins, the bookkeeper, came up to view tlje tangle. 
Later a photographer from Marquette took some 
views, which, being exhibited, attracted a great deal 
of attention, so that by the end of the week a number 
of curiosity seekers were driving over every day to see 
the Big Jam. A certain Chicago journalist in search 
of balsam health of lungs even sent to his paper a little 
item. This, unexpectedly, brought Wallace Carpen- 
ter to the spot. Although reassured as to the gravity 
of the situation, he remained to see. 

The place was an amphitheater for such as chose 
to be spectators. They could stand or sit on the sum- 
mit of the gorge cliffs, overlooking the river, the fall, 
and the jam. As the cliff was barely sixty feet high, 
the view lacked nothing in clearness. 

At last Shearer became angry. 

“ We’ve been monkeying long enough,” said he. 
“ Next time we’ll leave a center that will go out. We’ll 
shut the dams down tight and dry-pick out two wings 
that’ll start her.” 

The dams were first run at full speed, and then shut 
down. Hardly a drop of water flowed in the bed of 
the stream. The crews set laboriously to work to pull 
and roll the logs out in such flat fashion that a head 
of water should send them out. 

This was even harder work than the other, for they 
had not the floating power of water to help them in 


340 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

the lifting. As usual, part of the men worked below, 
part above. 

Jimmy Powers, curly-haired, laughing-faced, was ir- 
repressible. He badgered the others until they threw 
bark at him and menaced him with their peaveys. 
Always he had at his tongue’s end the proper quip for 
the occasion, so that in the long run the work was 
lightened by him. When the men stopped to think at 
all, they thought of Jimmy Powers with very kindly 
hearts, for it was known that he had had more trouble 
than most, and that the coin was not made too small 
for him to divide with a needy comrade. To those 
who had seen his mask of whole-souled good-nature 
fade into serious sympathy, Jimmy Powers’s poor little 
jokes were very funny indeed. 

“ Did ’je see th’ Swede at the circus las’ summer? ” 
he would howl to Red Jacket on the top tier. 

“ No,” Red Jacket would answer, “ was he there? ” 

“Yes,” Jimmy Powers would reply; then, after a 
pause — “ in a cage ! ” 

It was a poor enough jest, yet if you had been there, 
you would have found that somehow the log had in the 
meantime leaped of its own accord from that difficult 
position. 

Thorpe approved thoroughly of Jimmy Powers ; he 
thought him a good influence. He told Wallace so, 
standing among the spectators on the cliff-top. 

“ He is all right,” said Thorpe. “ I wish I had more 
like him. The others are good boys, too.” 

Five men were at the moment tugging futilely at a 
reluctant timber. They were attempting to roll one 
end of it over the side of another projecting log, but 
were continually foiled, because the other end was 
jammed fast. Each bent his knees, inserting his shoul- 
der under the projecting peavey stock, to straighten 
in a mighty effort. 

“ Hire a boy ! ” 


“ Get some powder of Junko ! ” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 341 

“ Have Jimmy talk it out ! ” “ Try that little one over 
by the corner,” called the men on top of the jam. 

Everybody laughed, of course. It was a fine spring 
day, clear-eyed and crisp, with a hint of new foliage in 
the thick buds of the trees. The air was so pellucid 
that one distinguished without difficulty the straight 
entrance to the gorge a mile away, and even the West 
Bend, fully five miles distant. 

Jimmy Powers took off his cap and wiped his fore- 
head. 

“ You boys,” he remarked politely, “ think you are 
boring with a mighty big auger.” 

“ My God ! ” screamed one of the spectators on top 
of the cliff. 

At the same instant Wallace Carpenter seized his 
friend’s arm and pointed. 

Down the bed of the stream from the upper bend 
rushed a solid wall of water several feet high. It flung 
itself forward with the headlong impetus of a cascade. 
Even in the short interval between the visitor’s ex- 
clamation and Carpenter’s rapid gesture, it had 
loomed into sight, twisted a dozen trees from the river 
bank, and foamed into the entrance of the gorge. An 
instant later it collided with the tail of the jam. 

Even in the railroad rush of those few moments sev- 
eral things happened. Thorpe leaped for a rope. The 
crew working on top of the jam ducked instinctively 
to right and left and began to scramble towards safety. 
The men below, at first bewildered and not compre- 
hending, finally understood, and ran towards the face 
of the jam with the intention of clambering up it. 
There could be no escape in the narrow canon below, 
the walls of which rose sheer. 

Then the flood hit square. It was the impact of ir- 
resistible power. A great sheet of water rose like surf 
from the tail of the jam; a mighty cataract poured 
down over its surface, lifting the free logs ; from either 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


342 

wing timbers crunched, split, rose suddenly into 
wracked prominence, twisted beyond the semblance 
of themselves. Here and there single logs were even 
projected bodily upwards, as an apple seed is shot from 
between the thumb and forefinger. Then the jam 
moved. 

Scotty Parsons, Jack Hyland, Red Jacket, and the 
forty or fifty top men had reached the shore. By the 
wriggling activity which is a riverman’s alone, they 
succeeded in pulling themselves beyond the snap of 
death’s jaws. It was a narrow thing for most of them, 
and a miracle for some. 

Jimmy Powers, Archie Harris, Long Pine Jim, Big 
Nolan, and Mike Moloney, the brother of Bryan, were 
in worse case. They were, as has been said, engaged 
in “ flattening ” part of the jam about eight or ten rods 
below the face of it. When they finally understood 
that the affair was one of escape, they ran towards the 
jam, hoping to climb out. Then the crash came. 
They heard the roar of the waters, the wrecking of the 
timbers, they saw the logs bulge outwards in anticipa- 
tion of the break. Immediately they turned and fled, 
they knew not where. 

All but Jimmy Powers. He stopped short in his 
tracks, and threw his battered old felt hat defiantly full 
into the face of the destruction hanging over him. 
Then, his bright hair blowing in the wind of death, he 
turned to the spectators standing helpless and para- 
lyzed, forty feet above him. 

It was an instant’s impression, — the arrested mo- 
tion seen in the flash of lightning — and yet to the 
onlookers it had somehow the quality of time. For 
perceptible duration it seemed to them they stared at 
the contrast between the raging hell above and the yet 
peaceable river bed below. They were destined to re- 
member that picture the rest of their natural lives, in 
such detail that each one of them could almost have 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


343 


reproduced it photographically by simply closing his 
eyes. Yet afterwards, when they attempted to recall 
definitely the impression, they knew it could have last- 
ed but a fraction of a second, for the reason that, clear 
and distinct in each man’s mind, the images of the flee- 
ing men retained definite attitudes. It was the in- 
stantaneous photography of events. 

“ So long, boys,” they heard Jimmy Powers’s voice. 
Then the rope Thorpe had thrown fell across a caldron 
of tortured waters and of tossing logs. 


Chapter XLIX 


^xURING perhaps ten seconds the survivors 
t Iwatched the end of Thorpe’s rope trailing in the 
1 J flood. Then the young man with a deep sigh 
began to pull it towards him. 

At once a hundred surmises, questions, ejaculations 
broke out. 

“ What happened?” cried Wallace Carpenter. 

“ What was that man’s name ? ” asked the Chicago 
journalist with the eager instinct of his profession. 

“ This is terrible, terrible, terrible ! ” a white-haired 
physician from Marquette kept repeating over and 


A half dozen ran towards the point of the cliff to peer 
down stream, as though they could hope to distin- 
guish anything in that waste of flood water. 

“ The dam’s gone out,” replied Thorpe. “ I don’t 
understand it. Everything was in good shape, as far 
as I could see. It didn’t act like an ordinary break. 
The water came too fast. Why, it was as dry as a 
bone until just as that wave came along. An ordinary 
break would have eaten through little by little before 
it burst, and Davis should have been able to stop it. 
This came all at once, as if the dam had disappeared. 
I don’t see.” 

His mind of the professional had already began to 
query causes. 

“How about the men?” asked Wallace. “Isn’t 
there something I can do ? ” 

“ You can head a hunt down the river,” answered 
Thorpe. “ I think it is useless until the water goes 


344 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


345 

down. Poor Jimmy. He was one of the best men 
I had. I wouldn’t have had this happen ” 

The horror of the scene was at last beginning to fil- 
ter through numbness into Wallace Carpenter’s im- 
pressionable imagination. 

“ No, no ! ” he cried vehemently. “ There is some- 
thing criminal about it to me ! I’d rather lose every 
log in the river ! ” 

Thorpe looked at him curiously. “ It is one of the 
chances of war,” said he, unable to refrain from the 
utterance of his creed. “ We all know it.” 

“ I’d better divide the crew and take in both banks 
of the river,” suggested Wallace in his constitutional 
necessity of doing something. 

“ See if you can’t get volunteers from this crowd,” 
suggested Thorpe. “ I can let you have two men to 
show you trails. If you can make it that way, it will 
help me out. I need as many of the crew as possible 
to use this flood water.” 

“ Oh, Harry,” cried Carpenter, shocked. “ You 
can’t be going to work again to-day after that horrible 
sight, before we have made the slightest effort to re- 
cover the bodies ! ” 

“ If the bodies can be recovered, they shall be,” re- 
plied Thorpe quietly. “ But the drive will not wait. 
We have no dams to depend on now, you must remem- 
ber, and we shall have to get out on freshet water.” 

“ Your men won’t work. I’d refuse just as they 
will ! ” cried Carpenter, his sensibilities still suffering. 

Thorpe smiled proudly. “ You do not know them. 
They are mine. I hold them in the hollow of my 
hand ! ” 

“ By Jove ! ” cried the journalist in sudden enthusi- 
asm. “ By Jove ! that is magnificent ! ” 

The men of the river crew had crouched on their 
narrow footholds while the jam went out. Each had 
clung to his peavey, as is the habit of rivermen. Down 


346 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

the current past their feet swept the debris of flood. 
Soon logs began to swirl by, — at first few, then many 
— from the remaining rollways which the river had 
automatically broken. In a little time the eddy caught 
up some of these logs, and immediately the inception 
of another jam threatened. The rivermen, without 
hesitation, as calmly as though catastrophe had not 
thrown the weight of its moral terror against their sto- 
icism, sprang, peavey in hand, to the insistent work. 

“ By Jove ! ” said the journalist again. “ That is 
magnificent ! They are working over the spot where 
their comrades died ! ” 

Thorpe’s face lit with gratification. He turned to 
the young man. 

“ You see,” he said in proud simplicity. 

With the added danger of freshet water, the work 
went on. 

At this moment Tim Shearer approached from in- 
land, his clothes dripping wet, but his face retaining its 
habitual expression of iron calmness. “ Anybody 
caught ? ” was his first question as he drew near. 

“ Five men under the face,” replied Thorpe briefly. 

Shearer cast a glance at the river. He needed to 
be told no more. 

“ I was afraid of it,” said he. “ The rollways must 
be all broken out. It’s saved us that much, but the 
freshet water won’t last long. It’s going to be a close 
squeak to get ’em out now. Don’t exactly figure on 
what struck the dam. Thought first I’d go right up 
that way, but then I came down to see about the boys.” 

Carpenter could not understand this apparent cal- 
lousness on the part of men in whom he had always 
thought to recognize a fund of rough but genuine feel- 
ing. To him the sacredness of death was incompatible 
with the insistence of work. To these others the two, 
of grim necessity, went hand in hand. 

“ Where were you ? ” asked Thorpe of Shearer. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


347 

“ On the pole trail. I got in a little, as you see.” 

In reality the foreman had had a close call for his 
life. A toughly-rooted basswood alone had saved 
him. 

“ We’d better go up and take a look,” he suggested. 
“ Th’ boys has things going here all right.” 

The two men turned towards the brush. 

“ Hi, Tjm,” called a voice behind them. 

Red Jacket appeared clambering up the cliff. 

“ Jack told me to give this to you,” he panted, hold- 
ing out a chunk of strangely twisted wood. 

“ Where’d he get this ? ” inquired Thorpe, quickly. 
“ It’s a piece of the dam,” he explained to Wallace, 
who had drawn near. 

“ Picked it out of the current,” replied the man. 

The foreman and his boss bent eagerly over the 
morsel. Then they stared with solemnity into each 
other’s eyes. 

“ Dynamite, by God ! ” exclaimed Shearer. 


Chapter L 

M lOR a moment the three men stared at each 
other without speaking. 

X “What does it mean?” almost whispered 

Carpenter. 

“ Mean ? Foul play ! ” snarled Thorpe. “ Come 
on, Tim.” 

The two struck into the brush, threading the paths 
with the ease of woodsmen. It was necessary to keep 
to the high inland ridges for the simple reason that the 
pole trail had by now become impassable. Wallace 
Carpenter, attempting to follow them, ran, stumbled, 
and fell through brush that continually whipped his 
face and garments, continually tripped his feet. All 
he could obtain was a vanishing glimpse of his com- 
panions’ backs. Thorpe and his foreman talked 
briefly. 

“ It’s Morrison and Daly,” surmised Shearer. “ I 
left them ’count of a trick like that. They wanted me 
to take charge of Perkinson’s drive and hang her a 
purpose. I been suspecting something — they’ve been 
layin’ too low.” 

Thorpe answered nothing. Through the site of the 
old dam they found a torrent pouring from the nar- 
rowed pond, at the end of which the dilapidated wings 
flapping in the current attested the former structure. 
Davis stood staring at the current. 

Thorpe strode forward and shook him violently by 
the shoulder. 

“How did this happen?” he demanded hoarsely. 
" Speak 1” 


348 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


349 

The man turned to him in a daze. “ I don’t know,” 
he answered. 

“ You ought to know. How was that ‘ shot ’ ex- 
ploded ? How did they get in here without you seeing 
them ? Answer me ! ” 

“ I don’t know,” repeated the man. “ I jest went 
over in th’ bresh to kill a few pa’tridges, and when I 
come back I found her this way. I wasn’t goin’ to 
close down for three hours yet, and I thought they was 
no use a hangin’ around here.” 

“ Were you hired to watch this dam, or weren’t 
you ? ” demanded the tense voice of Thorpe. “ Answer 
me, you fool.” 

“ Yes, I was,” returned the man, a shade of aggres- 
sion creeping into his voice. 

“Well, you’ve done it well. You’ve cost me my 
dam, and you’ve killed five men. If the crew finds out 
about you, you’ll go over the falls, sure. You get out 
of here ! Pike ! Don’t you ever let me see your face 
again ! ” 

The man blanched as he thus learned of his com- 
rades’ deaths. Thorpe thrust his face at him, lashed 
by circumstances beyond his habitual self-control. 

“ It’s men like you who make the trouble,” he 
stormed. “ Damn fools who say they didn’t mean 
to. It isn’t enough not to mean to. They should 
mean not to! I don’t ask you to think. I just want 
you to do what I tell you, and you can’t even do 
that.” 

He threw his shoulder into a heavy blow that 
reached the dam watcher’s face, and followed it imme- 
diately by another. Then Shearer caught his arm, 
motioning the dazed and bloody victim of the attack 
to get out of sight. Thorpe shook his foreman off 
with one impatient motion, and strode away up the 
river, his head erect, his eyes flashing, his nostrils dis- 
tended. 


35 ° 


rHE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ I reckon you’d better mosey,” Shearer dryly ad- 
vised the dam watcher ; and followed. 

Late in the afternoon the two men reached Dam 
Three, or rather the spot on which Dam Three had 
stood. The same spectacle repeated itself here, ex- 
cept that Ellis, the dam watcher, was nowhere to be 
seen. 

“ The dirty whelps,” cried Thorpe, “ they did a good 
job ! ” 

He thrashed about here and there, and so came 
across Ellis blindfolded and tied. When released, the 
dam watcher was unable to give any account of his 
assailants. 

“ They came up behind me while I was cooking,” he 
said. “ One of ’em grabbed me and the other one 
kivered my eyes. Then I hears the ‘ shot ’ and knows 
there’s trouble.” 

Thorpe listened in silence. Shearer asked a few 
questions. After the low-voiced conversation Thorpe 
arose abruptly. 

“ Where you going? ” asked Shearer. 

But the young man did not reply. He swung, with 
the same long, nervous stride, into the down-river 
trail. 

Until late that night the three men — for Ellis in- 
sisted on accompanying them — hurried through the 
forest. Thorpe walked tirelessly, upheld by his violent 
but repressed excitement. When his hat fell from his 
head, he either did not notice the fact, or did not care 
to trouble himself for its recovery, so he glanced 
through the trees bare-headed, his broad white brow 
gleaming in the moonlight. Shearer noted the fire in 
his eyes, and from the coolness of his greater age, 
counselled moderation. 

“ I wouldn’t stir the boys up,” he panted, for the 
pace was very swift. “ They’ll kill some one over 
there, it’ll be murder on both sides.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


351 

He received no answer. About midnight they came 
to the camp. 

Two great fires leaped among the trees, and the men, 
past the idea of sleep, grouped between them, talking. 
The lesson of twisted timbers was not lost to their 
experience, and the evening had brought its accumula- 
tion of slow anger against the perpetrators of the out- 
rage. These men were not given to oratorical mouth- 
ings, but their low-voiced exchanges between the puff- 
ings of a pipe led to a steadier purpose than that of 
hysteria. Even as the woodsmen joined their group, 
they had reached the intensity of execution. Across 
their purpose Thorpe threw violently his personality. 

“ You must not go,” he commanded. 

Through their anger they looked at him askance. 

“ I forbid it,” Thorpe cried. 

They shrugged their indifference and arose. This 
was an affair of caste brotherhood ; and the blood of 
their mates cried out to them. 

“ The work,” Thorpe shouted hoarsely. “ The 
work! We must get those logs out! We haven’t 
time ! ” 

But the Fighting Forty had not Thorpe’s ideal. 
Success meant a day’s work well done ; while ven- 
geance stood for a righting of the realities which had 
been unrighteously overturned. Thorpe’s dry-eyed, 
burning, almost mad insistence on the importance of 
the day’s task had not its ordinary force. They looked 
upon him from a standpoint apart, calmly,, dispassion- 
ately, as one looks on a petulant child. The grim call 
of tragedy had lifted them above little mundane things. 

Then swiftly between the white, strained face of the 
madman trying to convince his heart that his mind 
had been right, and the fanatically exalted rivermen, 
interposed the sanity of Radway. The old jobber 
faced the men calmly, almost humorously, and some- 
how the very bigness of the man commanded atten- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


35 2 


tion. When he spoke, his coarse, good-natured, every- 
day voice fell through the tense situation, clarifying 
it, restoring it to the normal. 

“ You fellows make me sick,” said he. “ You 
haven’t got the sense God gave a rooster. Don’t you 
see you’re playing right in those fellows’ hands? 
What do you suppose they dynamited them dams for ? 
To kill our boys ? Don’t you believe it for a minute. 
They never dreamed we was dry pickin’ that jam. 
They sent some low-lived whelp down there to hang 
our drive, and by smoke it looks like they was going 
to succeed, thanks to you mutton-heads. 

“ ’Spose you go over and take ’em apart ; what then ? 
You have a scrap ; probably you lick ’em.” The men 
growled ominously, but did not stir. “ You whale 
daylights out of a lot of men who probably don’t know 
any more about this here shooting of our dams than 
a hog does about a ruffled shirt. Meanwhile your 
drive hangs. Well? Well? Do you suppose the 
men who were back of that shooting, do you suppose 
Morrison and Daly give a tinker’s dam how many men 
of theirs you lick? What they want is to hang our 
drive. If they hang our drive, it’s cheap at the price 
of a few black eyes.” 

The speaker paused and grinned good-humoredly at 
the men’s attentive faces. Then suddenly his own be- 
came grave, and he swung into his argument all the 
impressiveness of his great bulk. 

“ Do you want to know how to get even ? ” he asked, 
shading each word. “ Do you want to know how to 
make those fellows sing so small you can’t hear them ? 
Well, I’ll tell you. Take out this drive! Do it in spite 
of them ! Show them they’re no good when they buck 
up against Thorpe’s One ! Our boys died doing their 
duty — the way a riverman ought to. Now hump your- fl 
selves! Don’t let ’em die in vain ! ” 

The crew stirred uneasily, looking at each other for 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 353 

approval of the conversion each had experienced. 
Radway, seizing the psychological moment, turned 
easily toward the blaze. 

“ Better turn in, boys, and get some sleep,” he said. 
“ We’ve got a hard day to-morrow.” He stooped to 
light his pipe at the fire. When he had again straight- 
ened his back after rather a prolonged interval, the 
group had already disintegrated. A few minutes later 
the cookee scattered the brands of the fire from before 
a sleeping camp. 

Thorpe had listened non-committally to the collo- 
quy. He had maintained the suspended attitude of a 
man who is willing to allow the trial of other methods, 
but who does not therefore relinquish his own. At the 
favorable termination of the discussion he turned away 
without comment. He expected to gain this result. 
Had he been in a more judicial state of mind he might 
have perceived at last the reason, in the complicated 
scheme of Providence, for his long connection with 
John Radway. 


Chapter LI 

^^EFORE daylight Injin Charley drifted into the 
J^camp to find Thorpe already out. With a curt 
AJ nod the Indian seated himself by the fire, and, 
producing a square plug of tobacco and a knife, be- 
gan leisurely to fill his pipe. Thorpe watched him in 
silence. Finally Injin Charley spoke in the red man’s 
* clear-cut, imitative English, a pause between each sen- 
tence. 

“ I find trail three men,” said he. “ Both dam, three 
men. One man go down river. Those men have 
cork-boot. One man no have cork-boot. He boss.” 

The Indian suddenly threw his chin out, his head 
back, half closed his eyes in a cynical squint. As by 
a flash Dyer, the scaler, leered insolently from behind 
the Indian’s stolid mask. 

“ How do you know ? ” said Thorpe. 

For answer the Indian threw his shoulders forward 
in Dyer’s nervous fashion. 

“ He make trail big by the toe, light by the heel. 
He make trail big on inside.” 

Charley arose and walked, after Dyer’s springy 
fashion, illustrating his point in the soft wood ashes 
of the immediate fireside. 

Thorpe looked doubtful. “ I believe you are right, 
Charley,” said he. “ But it is mighty little to go on. 
You can’t be sure.” 

“ I sure,” replied Charley. 

He puffed strongly at the heel of his smoke, then 
arose, and without farewell disappeared in the forest. 

Thorpe ranged the camp impatiently, glancing 
354 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


355 

often at the sky. At length he laid fresh logs on the 
fire and aroused the cook. It was bitter cold in the 
early morning. After a time the men turned out of 
their own accord, at first yawning with insufficient rest, 
and then becoming grimly tense as their returned wits 
reminded them of the situation. 

From that moment began the wonderful struggle 
against circumstances which has become a by-word 
among rivermen everywhere. A forty-day drive had 
to go out in ten. A freshet had to float out thirty 
million feet of logs. It was tremendous ; as even the 
men most deeply buried in the heavy hours of that time 
dimly realized. It was epic ; as the journalist, by now 
thoroughly aroused, soon succeeded in convincing his 
editors and his public. Fourteen, sixteen, sometimes 
eighteen hours a day, the men of the driving crew 
worked like demons. Jams had no chance to form. 
The phenomenal activity of the rear crew reduced by 
half the inevitable sacking. Of course, under the press- 
ure, the lower dam had gone out. Nothing was to be 
depended on but sheer dogged grit. Far up-river Sad- 
ler & Smith had hung their drive for the season. They 
had stretched heavy booms across the current, and so 
had resigned themselves to a definite but not extraor- 
dinary loss. Thorpe had at least a clear river. 

Wallace Carpenter could not understand how hu- 
man flesh and blood endured. The men themselves 
had long since reached the point of practical exhaus- 
tion, but were carried through by the fire of their 
leader. Work was dogged until he stormed into 
sight ; then it became frenzied. He seemed to impart 
to those about him a nervous force and excitability as 
real as that induced by brandy. When he looked at 
a man from his cavernous, burning eyes, that man 
jumped. 

It was all willing enough work. Several definite 
causes, each adequate alone to something extraordi- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


356 

nary, focussed to the necessity. His men worshipped 
Thorpe; the idea of thwarting the purposes of their 
comrade’s murderers retained its strength ; the innate 
pride of caste and craft — the sturdiest virtue of the 
riverman — was in these picked men increased to the 
dignity of a passion. The great psychological forces 
of a successful career gathered and made head against 
the circumstances which such careers always arouse in 
polarity. 

Impossibilities were puffed aside like thistles. The 
men went at them headlong. They gave way before 
the rush. Thorpe always led. Not for a single in- 
stant of the day nor for many at night was he at rest. 
He was like a man who has taken a deep breath to 
reach a definite goal, and who cannot exhale until the 
burst of speed be over. Instinctively he seemed to 
realize that a let-down would mean collapse. 

After the camp had fallen asleep, he would often lie 
awake half of the few hours of their night, every muscle 
tense, staring at the sky. His mind saw definitely 
every detail of the situation as he had last viewed it. 
In advance his imagination stooped and sweated to the 
work which his body was to accomplish the next morn- 
ing. Thus he did everything twice. Then at last the 
tension would relax. He would fall into uneasy sleep. 
But twice that did not follow. Through the dissolving 
iron mist of his striving, a sharp thought cleaved like 
an arrow. It was that after all he did not care. The 
religion of Success no longer held him as its devout- 
est worshiper. He was throwing the fibers of his life 
into the engine of toil, not because of moral duty, but 
because of moral pride. He meant to succeed in order 
to prove to himself that he had not been wrong. 

The pain of the arrow-wound always aroused him 
from his doze with a start. He grimly laughed the 
thought out of court. To his waking moments his re- 
ligion was sincere, was real. But deep down in his 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


357 

sub-consciousness, below his recognition, the other 
influence was growing like a weed. Perhaps the vis- 
ion, not the waking, had been right. Perhaps that far- 
off beautiful dream of a girl which Thorpe’s idealism 
had constructed from the reactionary necessities of 
Thorpe’s harsh life had been more real than his forest 
temples of his ruthless god ! Perhaps there were 
greater things than to succeed, greater things than 
success. Perhaps, after all, the Power that put us here 
demands more that we cleave one to the other in lov- 
ing-kindness than that we learn to blow the penny 
whistles it has tossed us. And then the keen, poig- 
nant memory of the dream girl stole into the young 
man’s mind, and in agony was immediately thrust 
forth. He would not think of her. He had given her 
up. He had cast the die. For success he had bar- 
tered her, in the noblest, the loftiest spirit of devotion. 
He refused to believe that devotion fanatical; he re- 
fused to believe that he had been wrong. In the still 
darkness of the night he would rise and steal to the 
edge of the dully roaring stream. There, his eyes 
blinded and his throat choked with a longing more 
manly than tears, he would reach out and smooth the 
round rough coats of the great logs. 

“ We’ll do it ! ” he whispered to them — and to him- 
self. “ We’ll do it ! We can’t be wrong. God would 
not have let us ! ” 


Chapter LI I 


T T T'ALLACE CARPENTER’S search expedi- 
1/1/ tion had proved a failure, as Thorpe had 
r r foreseen, but at the end of the week, when 
the water began to recede, the little beagles ran upon a 
mass of flesh and bones. The man was unrecogniza- 
ble, either as an individual or as a human being. The 
remains were wrapped in canvas and sent for inter- 
ment in the cemetery at Marquette. Three of the 
others were never found. The last did not come to 
light until after the drive had quite finished. 

Down at the booms the jam crew received the drive 
as fast as it came down. From one crib to another 
across the broad extent of the river’s mouth, heavy 
booms were chained end to end effectually to close 
the exit to Lake Superior. Against these the logs 
caromed softly in the slackened current, and stopped. 
The cribs were very heavy with slanting, instead of 
square, tops, in order that the pressure might be down- 
wards instead of sidewise. This guaranteed their 
permanency. In a short time the surface of the lagoon 
was covered by a brown carpet of logs running in 
strange patterns like windrows of fallen grain. Final- 
ly, across the straight middle distance of the river, ap- 
peared little agitated specks leaping back and forth. 
Thus the rear came in sight and the drive was all but 
over. 

Up till now the weather had been clear but oppres- 
sively hot for this time of year. The heat had come 
suddenly and maintained itself well. It had searched 
out with fierce directness all the patches of snow lying 

358 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


359 

under the thick firs and balsams of the swamp edge, 
it had shaken loose the anchor ice of the marsh bot- 
toms, and so had materially aided the success of the 
drive by increase of water. The men had worked for 
the most part in undershirts. They were as much in 
the water as out of it, for the icy bath had become al- 
most grateful. Hamilton, the journalist, who had 
attached himself definitely to the drive, distributed 
bunches of papers, in which the men read that the un- 
seasonable condition prevailed all over the country. 

At length, however, it gave signs of breaking. The 
sky, which had been of a steel blue, harbored great 
piled thunder-heads. Occasionally athwart the heat 
shot a streak of cold air. Towards evening the thun- 
der-heads shifted and finally dissipated, to be sure, but 
the portent was there. 

Hamilton’s papers began to tell of disturbances in 
the South and West. A washout in Arkansas de- 
railed a train ; a cloud-burst in Texas wiped out a 
camp ; the cities along the Ohio River were enjoying 
their annual flood with the usual concomitants of 
floating houses and boats in the streets. The men 
wished they had some of that water here. 

So finally the drive approached its end and all con- 
cerned began in anticipation to taste the weariness 
that awaited them. They had hurried their powers. 
The few remaining tasks still confronting them, all at 
once seemed more formidable than what they had ac- 
complished. They could not contemplate further ex- 
ertion. The work for the first time became dogged, 
distasteful. Even Thorpe was infected. He, too, 
wanted more than anything else to drop on the bed in 
Mrs. Hathaway’s boarding house, there to sponge 
from his mind all colors but the dead gray of rest. 
There remained but a few things to do. A mile of 
sacking would carry the drive beyond the influence 
of freshet water. After that there would be no hurry. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


36° 

He looked around at the hard, fatigue-worn faces 
of the men about him, and in the obsession of his 
wearied mood he suddenly felt a great rush of affection 
for these comrades who had so unreservedly spent 
themselves for his affair. Their features showed ex- 
haustion, it is true, but their eyes gleamed still with 
the steady half-humorous purpose of the pioneer. 
When they caught his glance they grinned good- 
humoredly. 

All at once Thorpe turned and started for the bank. 

“ That’ll do, boys,” he said quietly to the nearest 
group. “ She’s down ! ” 

It was noon. The sackers looked up in surprise. 
Behind them, to their very feet, rushed the soft smooth 
slope of Hemlock Rapids. Below them flowed a 
broad, peaceful river. The drive had passed its last 
obstruction. To all intents and purposes it was over. 

Calmly, with matter-of-fact directness, as though 
they had not achieved the impossible ; as though they, 
a handful, had not cheated nature and powerful ene- 
mies, they shouldered their peaveys and struck into 
the broad wagon road. In the middle distance loomed 
the tall stacks of the mill with the little board town 
about it. Across the eye spun the thread of the rail- 
road. Far away gleamed the broad expanses of Lake 
Superior. 

The cook had, early that morning, moored the wan- 
igan to the bank. One of the teamsters from town 
had loaded the men’s “ turkeys ” on his heavy wagon. 
The wanigan’s crew had thereupon trudged into town. 

The men paired off naturally and fell into a drag- 
ging, dogged walk. Thorpe found himself unexpect- 
edly with Big Junko. For a time they plodded on 
without conversation. Then the big man ventured a 
remark. 

“ I’m glad she’s over,” said he. “ I got a good stake 
cornin’.” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 361 

“ Yes,” replied Thorpe indifferently. 

“ I got most six hundred dollars comm’,” persisted 
Junko. 

“ Might as well be six hundred cents,” commented 
Thorpe, “ it’d make you just as drunk.” 

Big Junko laughed self-consciously but without the 
slightest resentment. 

“ That’s all right,” said he, “ but you betcher life I 
don’t blow this stake.” 

“ I’ve he&rd that talk before,” shrugged Thorpe. 

“ Yes, but this is different. I’m goin’ to git married 
on this. How’s that? ” 

Thorpe, his attention struck at last, stared at his 
companion. He noted the man’s little twinkling ani- 
mal eyes, his high cheek bones, his flat nose, his thick 
and slobbery lips, his straggling, fierce mustache and 
eyebrows, his grotesque long-tailed cutaway coat. 
So to him, too, this primitive man reaching dully from 
primordial chaos, the great moment had yielded its 
vision. 

“ Who is she? ” he asked abruptly. 

“ She used to wash at Camp Four.” 

Thorpe dimly remembered the woman now — an 
overweighted creature with a certain attraction of elf- 
ishly blowing hair, with a certain pleasing full-cheeked, 
full-bosomed health. 

The two walked on in re-established silence. Final- 
ly the giant, unable to contain himself longer, broke 
out again. 

“ I do like that woman,” said he with a quaintly de- 
liberate seriousness. “ That’s the finest woman in this 
district.” 

Thorpe felt the quick moisture rush to his eyes. 
There was something inexpressibly touching in those 
simple words as Big Junko uttered them. 

“ And when you are married,” he asked, “ what are 
you going to do? Are you going to stay on the 
river?” 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


3 62 

“ No, I’m goin’ to clear a farm. The woman she 
says that’s the thing to do. I like the river, too. But 
you bet when Carrie says a thing, that’s plenty good 
enough for Big Junko.” 

“ Suppose,” suggested Thorpe, irresistibly impelled 
towards the attempt, “ suppose I should offer you two 
hundred dollars a month to stay on the river. Would 
you stay ? ” 

“ Carrie don’t like it,” replied Junko. 

“ Two hundred dollars is big wages, v persisted 
Thorpe. “ It’s twice what I give Radway.” 

“ I’d like to ask Carrie.” 

“ No, take it or leave it now.” 

“ Well, Carrie says she don’t like it,” answered the 
riverman with a sigh. 

Thorpe looked at his companion fixedly. Some- 
how the bestial countenance had taken on an attrac- 
tion of its own. He remembered Big Junko as a wild 
beast when his passions were aroused, as a man whose 
honesty had been doubted. 

“ You’ve changed, Junko,” said he. 

“ I know,” said the big man. “ I been a scalawag 
all right. I quit it. I don’t know much, but Carrie 
she’s smart, and I’m goin’ to do what she says. When 
you get stuck on a good woman like Carrie, Mr. 
Thorpe, you don’t give much of a damn for anything 
else. Sure ! That’s right ! It’s the biggest thing top 
o’ earth ! ” 

Here it was again, the opposing creed. And from 
such a source. Thorpe’s iron will contracted again. 

“ A woman is no excuse for a man’s neglecting his 
work,” he snapped. 

“ Shorely not,” agreed Junko serenely. “ I aim to 
finish out my time all right, Mr. Thorpe. Don’t you 
worry none about that. I done my best for you. 
And,” went on the riverman in the expansion of this 
unwonted confidence with his employer, “ I’d like to 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 363 

rise to remark that you’re the best boss I ever had, 
and we boys wants to stay with her till there’s skating 
: n hell ! ” 

“ All right,” murmured Thorpe indifferently. 

His momentary interest had left him. Again the 
reactionary weariness dragged at his feet. Suddenly 
the remaining half mile to town seemed very long 
indeed. 


Chapter LIII 


T T T ALLACE CARPENTER and Hamilton* 
I/S/ the journalist, seated against the sun- 
r r warmed bench of Mrs. Hathaway’s board- 
ing-house, commented on the band as it stumbled in 


to the wash-room. 

“ Those men don’t know how big they are,” re- 
marked the journalist. “ That’s the way with most 
big men. And that man Thorpe belongs to another 
age. I’d like to get him to telling his experiences; 
he’d be a gold mine to me.” 

“ And would require about as much trouble to 
‘ work,’ ” laughed Wallace. “ He won’t talk.” 

“ That’s generally the trouble, confound ’em,” 
sighed Hamilton. “ The fellows who can talk haven’t 
anything to say ; and those who have something to tell 
are dumb as oysters. I’ve got him in though.” He 
spread one of a roll of papers on his knees. “ I got 
a set of duplicates for you. Thought you might like 
to keep them. The office tells me,” he concluded mod- 
estly, “ that they are attracting lots of attention, but 
are looked upon as being a rather clever sort of fic- 
tion.” 

Wallace picked up the sheet. His eye was at once 
met by the heading, “ ‘ So long, boys,’ ” in letters a 
half inch in height, and immediately underneath in 
smaller type, “ said Jimmy Powers, and threw his hat 
in the face of death.” 

“ It’s all there,” explained the journalist, " — the 
jam and the break, and all this magnificent struggle 
afterwards. It makes a great yarn. I feel tempted 


364 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 365 

sometimes to help it out a little — artistically, you 
know — but of course that wouldn’t do. She’d make 
a ripping yarn, though, if I could get up some motive 
outside mere trade rivalry for the blowing up of those 
dams. That would just round it off.” 

Wallace Carpenter was about to reply that such a 
motive actually existed, when the conversation was 
interrupted by the approach of Thorpe and Big Junko. 
The former looked twenty years older after his winter. 
His eye was dull, his shoulders drooped, his gait was 
inelastic. The whole bearing of the man was that of 
one weary to the bone. 

“ I’ve got something here to show you, Harry,” 
cried Wallace Carpenter, waving one of the papers. 
“ It was a great drive and here’s something to remem- 
ber it by.” 

“ All right, Wallace, by and by,” replied Thorpe 
dully. “ I’m dead. I’m going to turn in for a while. 
I need sleep more than anything else. I can’t think 
now.” 

He passed through the little passage into the “ par- 
lor bed-room,” which Mrs. Hathaway always kept 
in readiness for members of the firm. There he fell 
heavily asleep almost before his body had met the 
bed. 

In the long dining room the rivermen consumed a 
belated dinner. They had no comments to make. It 
was over. 

The two on the veranda smoked. To the right, at 
the end of the sawdust street, the mill sang its varying 
and lulling keys. The odor of fresh-sawed pine per- 
fumed the air. Not a hundred yards away the river 
slipped silently to the distant blue Superior, escaping 
between the slanting stone-filled cribs which held back 
the logs. Down the south and west the huge thunder- 
heads gathered and flashed and grumbled, as they had 
done every afternoon for days previous. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


366 

“Queer thing,” commented Hamilton finally, “these 
cold streaks in the air. They are just as distinct as 
though they had partitions around them.” 

“ Queer climate anyway,” agreed Carpenter. 

Excepting always for the mill, the little settlement 
appeared asleep. The main booms were quite desert- 
ed. Not a single figure, armed with its picturesque 
pike-pole, loomed athwart the distance. After awhile 
Hamilton noticed something. 

“ Look here, Carpenter,” said he, “ what’s happen- 
ing out there? Have some of your confounded logs 
sunk , or what ? There don’t seem to be near so many 
of them somehow.” 

“ No, it isn’t that,” proffered Carpenter after a mo- 
ment’s scrutiny, “ there are just as many logs, but they 
are getting separated a little so you can see the open 
water between them.” 

“ Guess you’re right. Say, look here, I believe that 
the river is rising! ” 

“ Nonsense, we haven’t had any rain.” 

“ She’s rising just the same. I’ll tell you how I 
know; you see that spile over there near the left- 
hand crib? Well, I sat on the boom this morning 
watching the crew, and I whittled the spile with my 
knife — you can see the marks from here. I cut the 
thing about two feet above the water. Look at it 
now.” 

“ She’s pretty near the water line, that’s right,” ad- 
mitted Carpenter. 

“ I should think that might make the boys hot” 
commented Hamilton. “ If they’d known this was 
coming, they needn’t have hustled so to get the drive 
down.” 

“ That’s so,” Wallace agreed. 

About an hour later the younger man in his turn 
made a discovery. 

“ She’s been rising right along,” he submitted. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 367 

“ Your marks are nearer the water, and, do you know, 
I believe the logs are beginning to feel it. See, they’ve 
closed up the little openings between them, and they 
are beginning to crowd down to the lower end of the 
bond.” 

“ I don’t know anything about this business,” haz- 
arded the journalist, “ but by the mere look of the 
thing I should think there was a good deal of pressure 
bn that same lower end. By Jove, look there! See 
those logs up-end ? I believe you’re going to have a 
jam right here in your own booms ! ” 

“ I don’t know,” hesitated Wallace, “ I never heard 
of its happening.” 

“ You’d better let someone know.” 

“ I hate to bother Harry or any of the rivermen. 
I’ll just step down to the mill. Mason — he’s our mill 
foreman — he’ll know.” 

Mason came to the edge of the high trestle and took 
one look. 

“ Jumping fish-hooks! ” he cried. “ Why, the river’s 
up six inches and still a cornin’ ! Here you, Tom ! ” 
he called to one of the yard hands, “ you tell Solly to 
get steam on that tug double quick, and have Dave 
hustle together his driver crew.” 

“ What you going to do? ” asked Wallace. 

“ I got to strengthen the booms,” explained the mill 
foreman. “ We’ll drive some piles across between the 
cribs.” 

“ Is there any danger? ” 

“ Oh, no, the river would have to rise a good deal 
higher than she is now to make current enough to 
hurt. They’ve had a hard rain up above. This will 
go down in a few hours.” 

After a time the tug puffed up to the booms, escort- 
ing the pile driver. The latter towed a little raft of 
long sharpened piles, which it at once began to drive 
in such positions as would most effectually strengthen 


368 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

the booms. In the meantime the thunder-heads had 
slyly climbed the heavens, so that a sudden deluge of 
rain surprised the workmen. For an hour it poured 
down in torrents ; then settled to a steady gray beat. 
Immediately the aspect had changed. The distant rise 
of land was veiled ; the brown expanse of logs became 
slippery and glistening; the river below the booms 
was picked into staccato points by the drops ; distant 
Superior turned lead color and seemed to tumble 
strangely athwart the horizon. 

Solly, the tug captain, looked at his mooring hawsers 
and then at the nearest crib. 

“ She’s riz two inches in th’ las’ two hours,” he an- 
nounced, “ and she’s runnin’ like a mill race.” Solly 
was a typical north-country tug captain, short and 
broad, with a brown, clear face, and the steadiest and 
calmest of steel-blue eyes. “ When she begins to feel 
th’ pressure behind,” he went on, “ there’s goin’ to be 
trouble.” 

Towards dusk she began to feel that pressure. 
Through the rainy twilight the logs could be seen rais- 
ing their ghostly arms of protest. Slowly, without 
tumult, the jam formed. In the van the logs crossed 
silently ; in the rear they pressed in, were sucked under 
in the swift water, and came to rest at the bottom of 
the river. The current of the river began to protest, 
pressing its hydraulics through the narrowing crevices. 
The situation demanded attention. 

A breeze began to pull off shore in the body of rain. 
Little by little it increased, sending the water by in 
gusts, ruffling the already hurrying river into greater 
haste, raising far from the shore dimly perceived 
white-caps. Between the roaring of the wind, the dash 
of rain, and the rush of the stream, men had to shout to 
make themselves heard. 

“ Guess you’d better rout out the boss,” screamed 
Solly to Wallace Carpenter ; “ this damn water’s com- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 369 

in’ up an inch an hour right along. When she backs 
up once, she’ll push this jam out sure.” 

Wallace ran to the boarding house and roused his 
partner from a heavy sleep. The latter understood the 
situation at a word. While dressing, he explained to 
the younger man wherein lay the danger. 

“ If the jam breaks once,” said he, “ nothing top of 
earth can prevent it from going out into the Lake, and 
there it’ll scatter, Heaven knows where. Once scat- 
tered, it is practically a total loss. The salvage 
wouldn’t pay the price of the lumber.” 

They felt blindly through the rain in the direction 
of the lights on the tug and pile-driver. Shearer, the 
water dripping from his flaxen mustache, joined them 
hke a shadow. 

“ I heard you come in,” he explained to Carpenter. 
At the river he announced his opinion. “ We can hold 
her all right,” he assured them. “ It’ll take a few more 
piles, but by morning the storm’ll be over, and she’ll 
begin to go down again.” 

The three picked their way over the creaking, sway- 
ing timber. But when they reached the pile-driver, 
they found trouble afoot. The crew had mutinied, and 
refused longer to drive piles under the face of the jam. 

“ If she breaks loose, she’s going to bury us,” said 
they. 

“ She won’t break, ’’.snapped Shearer, “get to work.” 

“ It’s dangerous,” they objected sullenly. 

“ By God, you get off this driver,” shouted Solly. 
“ Go over and lie down in a ten-acre lot, and see if you 
feel safe there ! ” 

He drove them ashore with a storm of profanity and 
a multitude of kicks, his steel-blue eyes blazing. 

“ There’s nothing for it but to get the boys out 
again,” said Tim ; “ I kinder hate to do it.” 

But when the Fighting Forty, half asleep but daunt- 
less, took charge of the driver, a catastrophe made it- 


370 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

self known. One of the ejected men had tripped the 
lifting chain of the hammer after another had knocked 
away the heavy preventing block, and so the hammer 
had fallen into the river and was lost. None other 
was to be had. The pile driver was useless. 

A dozen men were at once despatched for cables, 
chains, and wire ropes from the supply at the ware- 
house. 

“ I’d like to have those whelps here,” cried Shearer, 
“ I’d throw them under the jam.” 

“ It’s part of the same trick,” said Thorpe grimly; 
“ those fellows have their men everywhere among us. 
I don’t know whom to trust.” 

“You think it’s Morrison & Daly?” queried Car- 
penter astonished. 

“ Think ? I know it. They know as well as you or 
I that if we save these logs, we’ll win out in the stock 
exchange ; and they’re not such fools as to let us save 
them if it can be helped. I have a score to settle with 
those fellows ; and when I get through with this thing 
I’ll settle it all right.” 

“ What are you going to do now ? ” 

“ The only thing there is to be done. We’ll string 
heavy booms, chained together, between the cribs, and 
then trust to heaven they’ll hold. I think we can hold 
the jam. The water will begin to flow over the bank 
before long, so there won’t be much increase of press- 
ure over what we have now ; and as there won’t be 
any shock to withstand, I think our heavy booms will 
do the business.” 

He turned to direct the boring of some long boom 
logs in preparation for the chains. Suddenly he 
whirled again to Wallace with so strange an expres- 
sion in his face that the young man almost cried out. 
The uncertain light of the lanterns showed dimly the 
streaks of rain across his countenance, and his eye 
flared with a look almost of panic. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


371 

“ I never thought of it ! ” he said in a low voice. 
“ Fool that I am ! I don’t see how I missed it. Wal- 
lace, don’t you see what those devils will do next? ” 

“No, what do you mean?” gasped the younger 
man. 

“ There are twelve million feet of logs up river in 
Sadler & Smith’s drive. Don’t you see what they’ll 
do?” 

“ No, I don’t believe ” 

“ Just as soon as they find out that the river is boom- 
ing, and that we are going to have a hard time to hold 
our jam, they’ll let loose those twelve million on us. 
They’ll break the jam, or dynamite it, or something. 
And let me tell you, that a very few logs hitting the 
tail of our jam will start the whole shooting match so 
that no power on earth can stop it.” 

“ I don’t imagine they’d think of doing that ” 

began Wallace by way of assurance. 

“Think of it! You don’t know them. They’ve 
thought of everything. You don’t know that man 
Daly. Ask Tim, he’ll tell you.” 

“ Well, the ” 

“ I’ve got to send a man up there right away. Per- 
haps we can get there in time to head them off. They 
have to send their man over — By the way,” he 
queried, struck with a new idea, “ how long have you 
been driving piles ? ” 

“ Since about three o’clock.” 

“ Six hours,” computed Thorpe. “ I wish you’d 
come for me sooner.” 

He cast his eye rapidly over the men. 

“ I don’t know just who to send. There isn’t a good 
enough woodsman in the lot to make Siscoe Falls 
through the woods a night like this. The river trail 
is too long; and a cut through the woods is blind. 
Andrews is the only man I know of who could do it, 
but I think Billy Mason said Andrews had gone up on 


372 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

the Gunther track to run lines. Come on; we’ll 
see.” 

With infinite difficulty and caution, they reached the 
shore. Across the gleaming logs shone dimly the lan- 
terns at the scene of work, ghostly through the rain. 
Beyond, on either side, lay impenetrable drenched 
darkness, racked by the wind. 

“ I wouldn’t want to tackle it,” panted Thorpe. “ If 
it wasn’t for that cursed tote road between Sadler’s 
and Daly’s, I wouldn’t worry. It’s just too easy for 
them” 

Behind them the jam cracked and shrieked and 
groaned. Occasionally was heard, beneath the sharper 
noises, a dull boom , as one of the heavy timbers forced 
by the pressure from its resting place, shot into the air, 
and fell back on the bristling surface. 

Andrews had left that morning. 

“ Tim Shearer might do it,” suggested Thorpe, “ but 
I hate to spare him.” 

He picked his rifle from its rack and thrust the mag- 
azine full of cartridges. 

“ Come on, Wallace,” said he, “ we’ll hunt him up.” 

They stepped again into the shriek and roar of the 
storm, bending their heads to its power, but indiffer- 
ent in the already drenched condition of their clothing, 
to the rain. The saw-dust street was saturated like a 
sponge. They could feel the quick water rise about 
the pressure at their feet. From the invisible houses 
they heard a steady monotone of flowing from the 
roofs. Far ahead, dim in the mist, sprayed the light 
of lanterns. 

Suddenly Thorpe felt a touch on his arm. Faintly 
he perceived at his elbow the high lights of a face from 
which the water streamed. 

“ Injin Charley ! ” he cried, “ the very man ! ” 


Chapter LIV 


jy J APIDLY Thorpe explained what was to be 
done, and thrust his rifle into the Indian’s hands. 
JL V The latter listened in silence and stolidity, then 
turned, and without a word departed swiftly in the 
darkness. The two white men stood a minute atten- 
tive. Nothing was to be heard but the steady beat of 
rain and the roaring of the wind. 

Near the bank of the river they encountered a man, 
visible only as an uncertain black outline against the 
glow of the lanterns beyond. Thorpe, stopping him, 
found Big Junko. 

“ This is no time to quit,” said Thorpe, sharply. 

“ I ’aint quitting” replied Big Junko. 

“ Where are you going, then ? ” 

Junko was partially and stammeringly unrespon- 
sive. 

“ Looks bad,” commented Thorpe. “ You’d better 
get back to your job.” 

“ Yes,” agreed Junko helplessly. In the momentary 
slack tide of work, the giant had conceived the idea of 
searching out the driver crew for purposes of pugilis- 
tic vengeance. Thorpe’s suspicions stung him, but 
his simple mind could see no direct way to explanation. 

All night long in the chill of a spring rain and wind- 
storm the fighting Forty and certain of the mill crew 
gave themselves to the labor of connecting the slant- 
ing stone cribs so strongly, by means of heavy timbers 
chained end to end, that the pressure of a break in the 
jam might not sweep aside the defenses. Wallace 
Carpenter, Shorty, the chore-boy, and Anderson, the 
373 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


374 

barn-boss, picked a dangerous passage back and forth 
carrying pails of red-hot coffee which Mrs. Hathaway 
constantly prepared. The cold water numbed the 
men’s hands. With difficulty could they manipulate 
the heavy chains through the auger holes; with pain 
they twisted knots, bored holes. They did not com- 
plain. Behind them the jam quivered, perilously near 
the bursting point. From it shrieked aloud the demons 
of pressure. Steadily the river rose, an inch an hour. 
The key might snap at any given moment, — they 
could not tell, — and with the rush they knew very 
well that themselves, the tug, and the disabled pile- 
driver would be swept from existence. The worst of 
it was that the blackness shrouded their experience 
into uselessness ; they were utterly unable to tell by 
the ordinary visual symptoms how near the jam might 
be to collapse. 

However, they persisted, as the old-time riverman 
always does, so that when dawn appeared the barrier 
was continuous and assured. Although the pressure 
of the river had already forced the logs against the de- 
fenses, the latter held the strain well. 

The storm had settled into its gait. Overhead the 
sky was filled with gray, beneath which darker scuds 
flew across the zenith before a howling southwest 
wind. Out in the clear river one could hardly stand 
upright against the gusts. In the fan of many direc- 
tions furious squalls swept over the open water below 
the booms, and an eager boiling current rushed to the 
lake. 

Thorpe now gave orders that the tug and driver 
should take shelter. A few moments later he ex- 
pressed himself as satisfied. The dripping crew, their 
harsh faces gray in the half-light, picked their way to 
the shore. 

In the darkness of that long night’s work no man 
knew his neighbor. Men from the river, men from the 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 375 

mill, men from the yard all worked side by side. Thus 
no one noticed especially a tall, slender, but well-knit 
individual dressed in a faded mackinaw and a limp 
slouch hat which he wore pulled over his eyes. This 
young fellow occupied himself with the chains. 
Against the racing current the crew held the ends of 
the heavy booms, while he fastened them together. 
He worked well, but seemed slow. Three times 
Shearer hustled him on after the others had finished, 
examining closely the work that had been done. On 
the third occasion he shrugged his shoulder somewhat 
impatiently. 

The men straggled to shore, the young fellow just 
described bringing up the rear. He walked as though 
tired out, hanging his head and dragging his feet. 
When, however, the boarding-house door had closed 
on the last of those who preceded him, and the town 
lay deserted in the dawn, he suddenly became trans- 
formed. Casting a keen glance right and left to be 
sure of his opportunity, he turned and hurried reck- 
lessly back over the logs to the center booms. There 
he knelt and busied himself with the chains. 

In his zigzag progression over the jam he so blended 
with the morning shadows as to seem one of them, and 
he would have escaped quite unnoticed had not a sud- 
den shifting of the logs under his feet compelled him 
to rise for a moment to his full height. So Wallace 
Carpenter, passing from his bedroom, along the porch, 
to the dining room, became aware of the man on the 
logs. 

His first thought was that something demanding 
instant attention had happened to the boom. He 
therefore ran at once to the man’s assistance, ready to 
help him personally or to call other aid as the exig- 
ency demanded. Owing to the precarious nature of 
the passage, he could not see beyond his feet until very 
close to the workman. Then he looked up to find the 


376 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

man, squatted on the boom, contemplating him sar- 
donically. 

“ Dyer ! ” he exclaimed. 

“ Right, my son,” said the other coolly. 

“ What are you doing? ” 

“ If you want to know, I am filing this chain.” 

Wallace made one step forward and so became aware 
that at last firearms were taking a part in this desper- 
ate game. 

“ You stand still,” commanded Dyer from behind 
the revolver. “ It’s unfortunate for you that you hap- 
pened along, because now you’ll have to come with 
me till this little row is over. You won’t have to stay 
long; your logs’ll go out in an hour. I’ll just trouble 
you to go into the brush with me for a while.” 

The scaler picked his file from beside the weakened 
link. 

“ What have you against us, anyway, Dyer ? ” 
asked Wallace. His quick mind had conceived a plan. 
At the moment, he was standing near the outermost 
edge of the jam, but now as he spoke he stepped quiet- 
ly to the boom log. 

Dyer’s black eyes gleamed at him suspiciously, but 
the movement appeared wholly natural in view of the 
return to shore. 

“ Nothing,” he replied. “ I didn’t like your gang 
particularly, but that’s nothing.” 

“ Why do you take such nervy chances to injure 
us ? ” queried Carpenter. 

“ Because there’s something in it,” snapped the 
scaler. “ Now about face ; mosey ! ” 

Like a flash Wallace wheeled and dropped into the 
river, swimming as fast as possible below water before 
his breath should give out. The swift current hurried 
him away. When at last he rose for air, the spit of 
Dyer’s pistol caused him no uneasiness. A moment 
later he struck out boldly for shore. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


377 

What Dyer’s ultimate plan might be, he could not 
guess. He had stated confidently that the jam would 
break “ in an hour.” He might intend to start it with 
dynamite. Wallace dragged himself from the water 
and commenced breathlessly to run toward the board- 
ing-house. 

Dyer had already reached the shore. Wallace 
raised what was left of his voice in a despairing shout. 
The scaler mockingly waved his hat, then turned and 
ran swiftly and easily toward the shelter of the woods. 
At their border he paused again to bow in derision. 
Carpenter’s cry brought men to the boarding-house 
door. From the shadows of the forest two vivid 
flashes cut the dusk. Dyer staggered, turned com- 
pletely about, seemed partially to recover, and disap- 
peared. An instant later, across the open space where 
the scaler had stood, with rifle a-trail, the Indian leaped 
in pursuit. 


Chaptet LV 


w\ 


'HAT is it?” “What’s the matter?” 

What the hell’s up?” “What’s hap- 
pened?” burst on Wallace in a volley. 

It’s Dyer,” gasped the young man. “ I found him 
on the boom ! He held me up with a gun while he 
filed the boom chains between the center piers. 
They’re just ready to go. I got away by diving. 
Hurry and put in a new chain; you haven’t much 


time ! ” 

“ He’s a gone-er now,” interjected Solly grimly. — 
“ Charley is on his trail — and he is hit.” 

Thorpe’s intelligence leaped promptly to the practi- 
cal question. 

“ Injin Charley, where’d he come from? I sent him 
up Sadler & Smith’s. It’s twenty miles, even through 
the woods.” 

As though by way of colossal answer the whole 
surface of the jam moved inward and upward, thrust- 
ing the logs bristling against the horizon. 

“ She’s going to break ! ” shouted Thorpe, starting 
on a run towards the river. “ A chain, quick ! ” 

The men followed, strung high with excitement. 
Hamilton, the journalist, paused long enough to 
glance up-stream. Then he, too, ran after them, 
screaming that the river above was full of logs. By 
that they all knew that Injin Charley’s mission had 
failed, and that something under ten million feet of logs 
were racing down the river like so many battering 
rams. 

At the boom the great jam was already a-tremble 


378 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


379 

with eagerness to spring. Indeed a miracle alone 
seemed to hold the timbers in their place. 

“ It’s death, certain death, to go out on that boom,” 
muttered Billy Mason. 

Tim Shearer stepped forward coolly, ready as al- 
ways to assume the perilous duty. He was thrust 
back by Thorpe, who seized the chain, cold-shut and 
hammer which Scotty Parsons brought, and ran light- 
ly out over the booms, shouting, 

“ Back ! back ! Don’t follow me, on your lives ! 
Keep ’em back, Tim ! ” 

The swift water boiled from under the booms. 
Bang! smash! bang! crashed the logs, a mile up- 
stream, but plainly audible above the waters and the 
wind. Thorpe knelt, dropped the cold-shut through 
on either side of the weakened link, and prepared to 
close it with his hammer. He intended further to 
strengthen the connection with the other chain. 

“ Lem’ me hold her for you. You can’t close her 
alone,” said an unexpected voice next his elbow. 

Thorpe looked up in surprise and anger. Over him 
leaned Big Junko. The men had been unable to pre- 
vent his following. Animated by the blind devotion 
of the animal for its master, and further stung to 
action by that master’s doubt of his fidelity, the giant 
had followed to assist as he might. 

“ You damned fool,” cried Thorpe exasperated, then 
held the hammer to him, “ strike while I keep the chain 
underneath,” he commanded. 

Big Junko leaned forward to obey, kicking strongly 
his caulks into the barked surface of the boom log. 
The spikes, worn blunt by the river work already ac- 
complished, failed to grip. Big Junko slipped, caught 
himself by an effort, overbalanced in the other direc- 
tion, and fell into the stream. The current at once 
swept him away, but fortunately in such a direction 
that he was enabled to catch the slanting end of a 


380 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

“ dead head ” log whose lower end was jammed in the 
crib. The dead head was slippery, the current strong ; 
Big Junko had no crevice by which to assure his hold. 
In another moment he would be torn away. 

“ Let go and swim ! ” shouted Thorpe. 

“ I can’t swim,” replied Junko in so low a voice as 
to be scarcely audible. 

For a moment Thorpe stared at him. 

“ Tell Carrie,” said Big Junko. 

Then there beneath the swirling gray sky, under the 
frowning jam, in the midst of flood waters, Thorpe had 
his second great Moment of Decision. He did not 
pause to weigh reasons or chances, to discuss with 
himself expediency, or the moralities of failure. His 
actions were foreordained, mechanical. All at once 
the great forces which the winter had been bringing to 
power, crystallized into something bigger than him- 
self or his ideas. The trail lay before him ; there was 
no choice. 

Now clearly, with no shadow of doubt, he took the 
other view : There could be nothing better than Love. 
Men, their works, their deeds were little things. Suc- 
cess was a little thing ; the opinion of men a little thing. 
Instantly he felt the truth of it. 

And here was Love in danger. That it held its 
moment’s habitation in clay of the coarser mould had 
nothing to do with the great elemental truth of it. For 
the first time in his life Thorpe felt the full crushing 
power of an abstraction. Without thought, instinct- 
ively, he threw before the necessity of the moment all 
that was lesser. It was the triumph of what was real 
in the man over that which environment, alienation, 
difficulties had raised up within him. 

At Big Junko’s words, Thorpe raised his hammer 
and with one mighty blow severed the chains which 
bound the ends of the booms across the opening. The 
free end of one of the poles immediately swung down 


f 





Thorpe seized the giant by the collar , and dragged 
him through the water to safety . 





i » 




























































































































m 

• 9 

























« 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 381 

with the current in the direction of Big Junko. Thorpe 
like a cat ran to the end of the boom, seized the giant 
by the collar, and dragged him through the water to 
safety. 

“ Run ! ” he shouted. “ Run for your life ! ” 

The two started desperately back, skirting the edge 
of the logs which now the very seconds alone seemed 
to hold back. They were drenched and blinded with 
spray, deafened with the crash of timbers settling to 
the leap. The men on shore could no longer see them 
for the smother. The great crush of logs had actually 
begun its first majestic sliding motion when at last 
they emerged to safety. 

At first a few of the loose timbers found the opening, 
slipping quietly through with the current ; then more ; 
finally the front of the jam dove forward ; and an in- 
stant later the smooth, swift motion had gained its 
impetus and was sweeping the entire drive down 
through the gap. 

Rank after rank, like soldiers charging, they ran. 
The great fierce wind caught them up ahead of the cur- 
rent. In a moment the open river^was full of logs jost- 
ling eagerly onward. Then suddenly, far out above 
the uneven tossing skyline of Superior, the strange 
northern “ loom,” or mirage, threw the specters of 
thousands of restless timbers rising and falling on the 
bosom of the lake. 


Chapter LVI 


r HEY stood and watched them go. 

“ Oh, the great man ! Oh, the great man ! *' 
murmured the writer, fascinated. 

The grandeur of the sacrifice had struck them 
dumb. They did not understand the motives beneath 
it all, but the fact was patent. Big Junko broke down 
and sobbed. 

After a time the stream of logs through the gap 
slackened. In a moment more, save for the inevitably 
stranded few, the booms were empty. A deep sigh 
went up from the attentive multitude. 

“ She’s gone! ” said one man, with the emphasis of 
a novel discovery ; and groaned. 

Then the awe broke from about their minds, and 
they spoke many opinions and speculations. Thorpe 
had disappeared. They respected his emotion and did 
not follow him. 

“ It was just plain damn foolishness; — but it was 
great ! ” said Shearer. “ That no-account jackass of a 
Big Junko ain’t worth as much per thousand feet as 
good white pine.” 

Then they noticed a group of men gathering about 
the office steps, and on it someone talking. Collins, 
the bookkeeper, was making a speech. 

Collins was a little hatchet-faced man, with straight, 
lank hair, nearsighted eyes, a timid, order-loving dis- 
position, and a great suitability for his profession. He 
was accurate, unemotional, and valuable. All his 
actions were as dry as the saw-dust in the burner. 
No one had ever seen him excited. But he was 
382 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 383 

human ; and now his knowledge of the Company’s 
affairs showed him the dramatic contrast. He knew! 
He knew that the property of the firm had been 
mortgaged to the last dollar in order to assist expan- 
sion, so that not another cent could be borrowed 
to tide over present difficulty. He knew that the notes 
for sixty thousand dollars covering the loan to Wal- 
lace Carpenter came due in three months ; he knew 
from the long table of statistics which he was eternally 
preparing and comparing that the season’s cut should 
have netted a profit of two hundred thousand dollars 
— enough to pay the interest on the mortgages, to 
take up the notes, and to furnish a working capital for 
the ensuing year. These things he knew in the strange 
concrete arithmetical manner of the routine book- 
keeper. Other men saw a desperate phase of firm 
rivalry; he saw a struggle to the uttermost. Other 
men cheered a rescue : he thrilled over the magnificent 
gesture of the Gambler scattering his stake in largesse 
to Death. 

It was the simple turning of the hand from full 
breathed prosperity to lifeless failure. 

His view was the inverse of his master’s. To 
Thorpe it had suddenly become a very little thing in 
contrast to the great, sweet elemental truth that the 
dream girl had enunciated. To Collins the affair was 
miles vaster than the widest scope of his own narrow 
life. 

The firm could not take up its notes when they came 
due ; it could not pay the interest on the mortgages, 
which would now be foreclosed ; it could not even pay 
in full the men who had worked for it — that would 
come under a court’s adjudication. 

He had therefore watched Thorpe’s desperate sally 
to mend the weakened chain, in all the suspense of a 
man whose entire universe is in the keeping of the 
chance moment. It must be remembered that at bot- 


384 the blazed trail 

tom, below the outer consciousness, Thorpe’s final de- 
cision had already grown to maturity. On the other 
hand, no other thought than that of accomplishment 
had even entered the little bookkeeper’s head. The 
rescue and all that it had meant had hit him like a 
stroke of apoplexy, and his thin emotions had curdled 
to hysteria. Full of the idea he appeared before the 
men. 

With rapid, almost incoherent speech he poured it 
out to them. Professional caution and secrecy were 
forgotten. Wallace Carpenter attempted to push 
through the ring for the purpose of stopping him. 
A gigantic riverman kindly but firmly held him back. 

“ I guess it’s just as well we hears this,” said the 
latter. 

It all came out — the loan to Carpenter, with a hint 
at the motive : the machinations of the rival firm on the 
Board of Trade ; the notes, the mortgages, the neces- 
sity of a big season’s cut ; the reasons the rival firm had 
for wishing to prevent that cut from arriving at the 
market ; the desperate and varied means they had em- 
ployed. The men listened silent. Hamilton, his eyes 
glowing like coals, drank in every word. Here was 
the master motive he had sought ; here was the story 
great to his hand ! 

“ That’s what we ought to get,” cried Collins, almost 
weeping, “ and now we’ve gone and bust, just because 
that infernal river-hog had to fall off a boom. By 
God, it’s a shame ! Those scalawags have done us 
after all ! ” 

Out from the shadows of the woods stole Injin 
Charley. The whole bearing and aspect of the man 
had changed. His eye gleamed with a distant far- 
seeing fire of its own, which took no account of any- 
thing but some remote vision. He stole along almost 
furtively, but with a proud upright carriage of his 
neck, a backward tilt of his fine head, a distention of 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 385 

his nostrils that lent to his appearance a panther-like 
pride and stealthiness. No one saw him. Suddenly 
he broke through the group and mounted the steps 
beside Collins. 

“ The enemy of my brother is gone,” said he simply 
in his native tongue, and with a sudden gesture held 
out before them — a scalp. 

The medieval barbarity of the thing appalled them 
for a moment. The days of scalping were long since 
past, had been closed away between the pages of for- 
gotten histories, and yet here again before them was 
the thing in all its living horror. Then a growl arose. 
The human animal had tasted blood. 

All at once like wine their wrongs mounted to their 
heads. They remembered their dead comrades. They 
remembered the heart-breaking days and nights of toil 
they had endured on account of this man and his asso- 
ciates. They remembered the words of Collins, the 
little bookkeeper. They hated. They shook their 
fists across the skies. They turned and with one ac- 
cord struck back for the railroad right-of-way which 
led to Shingleville, the town controlled by Morrison 
& Daly. 

The railroad lay for a mile straight through a thick 
tamarack swamp, then over a nearly treeless cranberry 
plain. The tamarack was a screen between the two 
towns. When half-way through the swamp, Red- 
Jacket stopped, removed his coat, ripped the lining 
from it, and began to fashion a rude mask. 

“ Just as well they don’t recognize us,” said he. 

“ Somebody in town will give us away,” suggested 
Shorty, the chore-boy. 

“ No, they won’t ; they’re all here,” assured Kerlie. 

It was true. Except for the women and children, 
who were not yet about, the entire village had assem- 
bled. Even old Vanderhoof, the fire-watcher of the 
yard, hobbled along breathlessly on his rheumatic 


386 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

legs. In a moment the masks were fitted. In a mo- 
ment more the little band had emerged from the shel- 
ter of the swamp, and so came into full view of its ob- 
jective point. 

Shingleville consisted of a big mill ; the yards, now 
nearly empty of lumber; the large frame boarding- 
house ; the office ; the stable ; a store ; two saloons ; and 
a dozen dwellings. The party at once fixed its eyes 
on this collection of buildings, and trudged on down 
the right-of-way with unhastening grimness. 

Their approach was not unobserved. Daly saw 
them ; and Baker, his foreman, saw them. The two 
at once went forth to organize opposition. When the 
attacking party reached the mill-yard, it found the boss 
and the foreman standing alone on the sawdust, re- 
volvers drawn. 

Daly traced a line with his toe. 

“ The first man that crosses that line gets it,” said he. 

They knew he meant what he said. An instant’s 
pause ensued, while the big man and the little faced 
a mob. Daly’s rivermen were still on drive. He 
knew the mill men too well to depend on them. 
Truth to tell, the possibility of such a raid as this had 
not occurred to him ; for the simple reason that he did 
not anticipate the discovery of his complicity with the 
forces of nature. Skillfully carried out, the plan was 
a good one. No one need know of the weakened 
link, and it was the most natural thing in the world 
that Sadler & Smith’s drive should go out with the 
increase of water. 

The men grouped swiftly and silently on the other 
side of the sawdust line. The pause did not mean that 
Daly’s defense was good. I have known of a crew of 
striking mill men being so bluffed down, but not such 
men as these. 

“ Do you know what’s going to happen to you ? ” 
said a voice from the group. The speaker was Rad- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 387 

way, but the contractor kept himself well in the back- 
ground. “ We’re going to burn your mill; we’re go- 
ing to burn your yards; we’re going to burn your 
whole shooting match, you low-lived whelp ! ” 

“ Yes, and we’re going to string you to your own 
trestle ! ” growled another voice harshly. 

“ Dyer ! ” said Injin Charley, simply, shaking the 
wet scalp arm’s length towards the lumbermen. 

At this grim interruption a silence fell. The owner 
paled slightly ; his foreman chewed a nonchalant straw. 
Down the still and deserted street crossed and re- 
crossed the subtle occult influences of a half-hundred 
concealed watchers. Daly and his subordinate were 
very much alone, and very much in danger. Their 
last hour had come ; and they knew it. 

With the recognition of the fact, they immediately 
raised their weapons in the resolve to do as much dam- 
age as possible before being overpowered. 

Then suddenly, full in the back, a heavy stream of 
water knocked them completely off their feet, rolled 
them over and over on the wet sawdust, and finally 
jammed them both against the trestle, where it held 
them, kicking and gasping for breath, in a choking 
cataract of water. The pistols flew harmlessly into 
the air. For an instant the Fighting Forty stared in 
paralyzed astonishment. Then a tremendous roar of 
laughter saluted this easy vanquishment of a formida- 
ble enemy. 

Daly and Baker were pounced upon and captured. 
There was no resistance. They were too nearly stran- 
gled for that. Little Solly and old Vanderhoof turned 
off the water in the fire hydrant and disconnected the 
hose they had so effectively employed. 

“ There, damn you ! ” said Rollway Charley, jerking 
the millman to his feet. “ How do you like too much 
water?' hey? ” 

The unexpected comedy changed the party’s mood. 


388 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

It was no longer a question of killing. A number 
broke into the store, and shortly emerged, bearing 
pails of kerosene with which they deluged the slabs on 
the windward side of the mill. The flames caught the 
structure instantly. A thousand sparks, borne by the 
off-shore breeze, fastened like so many stinging insects 
on the lumber in the yard. 

It burned as dried balsam thrown on a camp fire. 
The heat of it drove the onlookers far back in the vil- 
lage, where in silence they watched the destruction. 
From behind locked doors the inhabitants watched 
with them. 

The billow of white smoke filled the northern sky. 
A whirl of gray wood ashes, light as air, floated on and 
ever on over Superior. The site of the mill, the 
squares where the piles of lumber had stood, glowed 
incandescence over which already a white film was 
forming. 

Daly and his man were slapped and cuffed hither 
and thither at the men’s will. Their faces bled, their 
bodies ached as one bruise. 

“ That squares us,” said the men. “ If we can’t cut 
this year, neither kin you. It’s up to you now ! ” 

Then, like a destroying horde of locusts, they gutted 
the office and the store, smashing what they could not 
carry to the fire. The dwellings and saloons they did 
not disturb. Finally, about noon, they kicked their 
two prisoners into the river, and took their way strag- 
glingly back along the right-of-way. 

“ I surmise we took that town apart some ! ” re- 
marked Shorty with satisfaction. 

“ I should rise to remark,” replied Kerlie. Big 
Junko said nothing, but his cavernous little animal 
eyes glowed with satisfaction. He had been the first 
to lay hands on Daly ; he had helped to carry the pe- 
troleum ; he had struck the first match ; he had even 
administered the final kick. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 389 

At the boarding-house they found Wallace Carpen- 
ter and Hamilton seated on the veranda. It was now 
afternoon. The wind had abated somewhat, and the 
sun was struggling with the still flying scuds. 

“ Hello, boys,” said Wallace, “ been for a little walk 
in the woods ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” replied Jack Hyland, “ we ” 

“ I’d rather not hear,” interrupted Wallace. 
“ There’s quite a fire over east. I suppose you haven’t 
noticed it.” 

Hyland looked gravely eastward. 

“ Sure ’nough ! ” said he. 

“ Better get some grub,” suggested Wallace. 

After the men had gone in, he turned to the jour- 
nalist. 

“ Hamilton,” he began, “ write all you know about 
the drive, and the break, and the rescue, but as to the 
burning of the mill ” 

The other held out his hand. 

“ Good,” said Wallace offering his own. 

And that was as far as the famous Shingleville raid 
ever got. Daly did his best to collect even circum- 
stantial evidence against the participants, but in vain. 
He could not even get anyone to say that a single mem- 
ber of the village of Carpenter had absented himself 
from town that morning. This might have been from 
loyalty, or it might have been from fear of the ven- 
geance the Fighting Forty would surely visit on a 
traitor. Probably it was a combination of both. The 
fact remains, however, that Daly never knew surely 
of but one man implicated in the destruction of his 
plant. That man was Injin Charley, but Injin Char- 
ley promptly disappeared. 

After an interval, Tim Shearer, Radway and Kerlie 
came out again. 

“ Where’s the boss ? ” asked Shearer. 

“ I don’t know, Tim,” replied Wallace seriously. 


390 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

“ I’ve looked everywhere. He’s gone. He must have 
been all cut up. I think he went out in the woods to 
get over it. I am not worrying. Harry has lots of 
sense. He’ll come in about dark.” 

“ Sure ! ” said Tim. 

“ How about the boy’s stakes ? ” queried Radway. 
“ I hear this is a bad smash for the firm.” 

“ We’ll see that the men get their wages all right,” 
replied Carpenter, a little disappointed that such a 
question should be asked at such a time. 

“ All right,” rejoined the contractor. “ We’re all 
going to need our money this summer.” 


Chapter LVII 


i^^^HORPE walked through the silent group of 

m men without seeing them. He had no thought 
M for what he had done, but for the triumphant 
discovery he had made in spite of himself. This he 
saw at once as something to glory in and as a duty to 
be fulfilled. 

It was then about six o’clock in the morning. 
Thorpe passed the boarding-house, the store, and the 
office, to take himself as far as the little open shed that 
served the primitive town as a railway station. There 
he set the semaphore to flag the east-bound train from 
Duluth. At six thirty-two, the train happening on 
time, he climbed aboard. He dropped heavily into a 
seat and stared straight in front of him until the con- 
ductor had spoken to him twice. 

“ Where to, Mr. Thorpe ? ” he asked. 

The latter gazed at him uncomprehendingly. 

“ Oh ! Mackinaw City,” he replied at last. 

“ How’re things going up your way ? ” inquired the 
conductor by way of conversation while he made out 
the pay-slip. 

“ Good ! ” responded Thorpe mechanically. 

The act of paying for his fare brought to his con- 
sciousness that he had but a little over ten dollars with 
him. He thrust the change back into his pocket, and 
took up his contemplation of nothing. The river water 
dripped slowly from his “ cork ” boots to form a pool 
on the car floor. The heavy wool of his short driving 
trousers steamed in the car’s warmth. His shoulders 
dried in a little cloud of vapor. He noticed none of 
39i 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


39 * 

these things, but stared ahead, his gaze vacant, the 
bronze of his face set in the lines of a brown study, 
his strong capable hands hanging purposeless between 
his knees. The ride to Mackinaw City was six hours 
long, and the train in addition lost some ninety 
minutes ; but in all this distance Thorpe never altered 
his pose nor his fixed attitude of attention to some 
inner voice. 

The car-ferry finally landed them on the southern 
peninsula. Thorpe descended at Mackinaw City to 
find that the noon train had gone. He ate a lunch at 
the hotel, — borrowed a hundred dollars from the 
agent of Louis Sands, a lumberman of his acquaint- 
ance; and seated himself rigidly in the little waiting 
room, there to remain until the nine-twenty that night. 
When the cars were backed down from the siding, he 
boarded the sleeper. In the doorway stood a disap- 
proving colored porter. 

“ Yo’ll fin’ the smokin’ cah up fo’wu’d, suh,” said 
the latter, firmly barring the way. 

“ It’s generally forward,” answered Thorpe. 

“ This yeah’s th’ sleepah,” protested the functionary. 
“ You pays extry.” 

“ I am aware of it,” replied Thorpe curtly. “ Give 
me a lower.” 

“ Yessah! ” acquiesced the darkey, giving way, but 
still in doubt. He followed Thorpe curiously, peering 
into the smoking room on him from time to time. A 
little after twelve his patience gave out. The stolid 
gloomy man of lower six seemed to intend sitting up 
all night. 

“ Yo’ berth is ready, sah,” he delicately suggested. 

Thorpe arose obediently, walked to lower six, and, 
without undressing, threw himself on the bed. After- 
wards the porter, in conscientious discharge of his 
duty, looked diligently beneath the seat for boots to 
polish. Happening to glance up, after fruitless search, 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


393 

he discovered the boots still adorning the feet of their 
owner. 

“ Well, for th’ lands sake! ” ejaculated the scandal- 
ized negro, beating a hasty retreat. 

He was still more scandalized when, the following 
noon, his strange fare brushed by him without bestow- 
ing the expected tip. 

Thorpe descended at Twelfth Street in Chicago 
without any very clear notion of where he was going. 
For a moment he faced the long park-like expanse of 
the lake front, then turned sharp to his left and picked 
his way south up the interminable reaches of Michigan 
Avenue. He did this without any conscious motive, 
— mainly because the reaches seemed interminable, 
and he proved the need of walking. Block after block 
he clicked along, the caulks of his boots striking fire 
from the pavement. Some people stared at him a lit- 
tle curiously. Others merely glanced in his direction, 
attracted more by the expression of his face than the 
peculiarity of his dress. At that time rivermen were 
not an uncommon sight along the water front. 

After an interval he seemed to have left the smoke 
and dirt behind. The street became quieter. Board- 
ing-houses and tailors' shops ceased. Here and there 
appeared a bit of lawn, shrubbery, flowers. The resi- 
dences established an uptown crescendo of magnifi- 
cence. Policemen seemed trimmer, better-gloved. 
Occasionally he might have noticed in front of one of 
the sandstone piles, a besilvered pair champing before 
a stylish vehicle. By and by he came to himself to 
find that he was staring at the deep-carved lettering in 
a stone horse-block before a large dwelling. 

His mind took the letters in one after the other, per- 
ceiving them plainly before it accorded them recogni- 
tion. Finally he had completed the word Farrand. 
He whirled sharp on his heel, mounted the broad 
white stone steps, and rang the bell. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


394 

It was answered almost immediately by a clean- 
shaven, portly and dignified man with the most impas- 
sive countenance in the world. This man looked upon 
Thorpe with lofty disapproval. 

“ Is Miss Hilda Farrand at home? ” he asked. 

“ I cannot say,” replied the man. “ If you will step 
to the back door, I will ascertain.” 

“ The flowers will do. Now see that the south room 
is ready, Annie,” floated a voice from within. 

Without a word, but with a deadly earnestness, 
Thorpe reached forward, seized the astonished servant 
by the collar, yanked him bodily outside the door, 
stepped inside, and strode across the hall toward a 
closed portiere whence had come the voice. The 
riverman’s long spikes cut little triangular pieces from 
the hardwood floor. Thorpe did not notice that. He 
thrust aside the portiere. 

Before him he saw a young and beautiful girl. She 
was seated, and her lap was filled with flowers. At his 
sudden apparition, her hands flew to her heart, and 
her lips slightly parted. For a second the two stood 
looking at each other, just as nearly a year before their 
eyes had crossed over the old pole trail. 

To Thorpe the girl seemed more beautiful than ever. 
She exceeded even his retrospective dreams of her, 
for the dream had persistently retained something of 
the quality of idealism which made the vision unreal, 
while the woman before him had become human flesh 
and blood, adorable, to be desired. The red of this 
violent unexpected encounter rushed to her face, her 
bosom rose and fell in a fluttering catch for breath; 
but her eyes were steady and inquiring. 

Then the butler pounced on Thorpe from behind 
with the intent to do great bodily harm. 

“ Morris ! ” commanded Hilda sharply, “ what are 
you doing? ” 

The man cut short his heroism in confusion. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


395 


“ You may go,” concluded Hilda. 

Thorpe stood straight and unwinking by the straight 
portiere. After a moment he spoke. 

“ I have come to tell you that you were right and I 
was wrong,” said he steadily. “ You told me there 
could be nothing better than love. In the pride of my 
strength I told you this was not so. I was wrong.” 

He stood for another instant, looking directly at 
her, then turned sharply, and head erect walked from 
the room. 

Before he had reached the outer door the girl was 
at his side. 

“ Why are you going? ” she asked. 

“ I have nothing more to say.” 

“ Nothing? ” 

“ Nothing at all.” 

She laughed happily to herself. 

“ But I have — much. Come back.” 

They returned to the little morning room, Thorpe's 
caulked boots gouging out the little triangular fur- 
rows in the hardwood floor. Neither . noticed that. 
Morris, the butler, emerged from his hiding and held 
up the hands of horror. 

“ What are you going to do now ? ” she catechised, 
facing him in the middle of the room. A long tendril 
of her beautiful corn-silk hair fell across her eyes ; her 
red lips parted in a faint wistful smile; beneath the 
draperies of her loose gown the pure slender lines of 
her figure leaned toward him. 

“ I am going back,” he replied patiently. 

“ I knew you would come,” said she. “ I have been 
expecting you.” 

She raised one hand to brush back the tendril of 
hair, but it was a mechanical gesture, one that did not 
stir even the surface consciousness of the strange 
half-smiling, half-wistful, starry gaze with which she 
watched his face. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


396 

“ Oh, Harry,” she breathed, with a sudden flash of 
insight, “ you are a man born to be much misunder- 
stood.” 

He held himself rigid, but in his veins was creeping 
a molten fire, and the fire was beginning to glow 
dully in his eye. Her whole being called him. His 
heart leaped, his breath came fast, his eyes swam. 
With almost hypnotic fascination the idea obsessed 
him — to kiss her lips, to press the soft body of the 
young girl, to tumble her hair down about her flower 
face. He had not come for this. He tried to steady 
himself, and by an effort that left him weak he suc- 
ceeded. Then a new flood of passion overcame him. 
In the later desire was nothing of the old humble ado- 
ration. It was elemental, real, almost a little savage. 
He wanted to seize her so fiercely as to hurt her. 
Something caught his throat, filled his lungs, weak- 
ened his knees. For a moment it seemed to him that 
he was going to faint. 

And still she stood there before him, saying nothing, 
leaning slightly towards him, her red lips half parted, 
her eyes fixed almost wistfully on his face. 

“ Go away ! ” he whispered hoarsely at last. The 
voice was not his own. “ Go away ! Go away ! ” 

Suddenly she swayed to him. 

“ Oh, Harry, Harry,” she whispered, “ must I tell 
you? Don’t you see? ” 

The flood broke through him. He seized her 
hungrily. He crushed her to him until she gasped; 
he pressed his lips against hers until she all but cried 
out with the pain of it ; he ran his great brown hands 
blindly through her hair until it came down about them 
both in a cloud of spun light. 

“ Tell me ! ” he whispered. “ Tell me ! ” 

“Oh! Oh !” she cried. “Please! What is it?” 

“ I do not believe it,” he murmured savagely. 

She drew herself from him with gentle dignity. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


397 

“ I am not worthy to say it,” she said soberly, “ but 
I love you with all my heart and soul ! ” 

Then for the first and only time in his life Thorpe 
fell to weeping, while she, understanding, stood by and 
comforted him. 


Chapter LVIII 

r HE few moments of Thorpe’s tears eased the 
emotional strain under which, perhaps uncon- 
sciously, he had been laboring for nearly a year 
past. The tenseness of his nerves relaxed. He was 
able to look on the things about him from a broader 
standpoint than that of the specialist, to front life with 
saving humor. The deep breath after striving could 
at last be taken. 

In this new attitude there was nothing strenuous, 
nothing demanding haste ; only a deep glow of content 
and happiness. He savored deliberately the joy of a 
luxurious couch, rich hangings, polished floor, sub- 
dued light, warmed atmosphere. He watched with 
soul-deep gratitude the soft girlish curves of Hilda’s 
body, the poise of her flower head, the piquant, half- 
wistful, half-childish set of her red lips, the clear star- 
like glimmer of her dusky eyes. It was all near to 
him ; his. 

“ Kiss me, dear,” he said. 

She swayed to him again, deliciously graceful, deli- 
ciously unselfconscious, trusting, adorable. Already 
in the little nothingnesses of manner, the trifles of 
mental and bodily attitude, she had assumed that 
faint trace of the maternal which to the observant 
tells so plainly that a woman has given herself to a 
man. 

She leaned her cheek against her hand, and her hand 
against his shoulder. 

“ I have been reading a story lately,” said she, “ that 
has interested me very much. It was about a man 
398 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


399 

who renounced all he held most dear to shield a 
friend/' 

“ Yes,” said Thorpe. 

“ Then he renounced all his most valuable posses- 
sions because a poor common man needed the sacri- 
fice/’ 

“ Sounds like a medieval story,” said he with uncon- 
scious humor. 

“ It happened recently,” rejoined Hilda. “ I read it 
in the papers.” 

“ Well, he blazed a good trail,” was Thorpe’s sigh- 
ing comment. “ Probably he had his chance. We 
don’t all of us get that. Things go crooked and get 
tangled up, so we have to do the best we can. I don’t 
believe Fd have done it.” 

“ Oh, you are delicious ! ” she cried. 

After a time she said very humbly : “ I want to beg 
your pardon for misunderstanding you and causing 
you so much suffering. I was very stupid, and didn’t 
see why you could not do as I wanted you to.” 

“ That is nothing to forgive. I acted like a fool.” 

“ I have known about you,” she went on. “ It has 
all come out in the Telegram. It has been very excit- 
ing. Poor boy, you look tired.” 

He straightened himself suddenly. “ I have forgot- 
ten, — actually forgotten,” he cried a little bitterly. 
“ Why, I am a pauper, a bankrupt, I ” 

“ Harry,” she interrupted gently, but very firmly, 
“you must not say what you were going to say. I 
cannot allow it. Money came between us before. It 
must not do so again. Am I not right, dear? ” 

She smiled at him with the lips of a child and the 
eyes of a woman. 

“ Yes,” he agreed after a struggle, “ you are right. 
But now I must begin all over again. It will be a long 
time before I shall be able to claim you. I have my 
way to make.” 


400 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


“ Yes/’ said she diplomatically. 

“ But you ! ” he cried suddenly. “ The papers re- 
mind me. How about that Morton ? ” 

“ What about him ? ” asked the girl, astonished. 
“ He is very happily engaged.” 

Thorpe’s face slowly filled with blood. 

“ You’ll break the engagement at once,” he com- 
manded a little harshly. 

“ Why should I break the engagement ? ” demanded 
Hilda, eying him with some alarm. 

“ I should think it was obvious enough.” 

“ But it isn’t,” she insisted. “ Why ? ” 

Thorpe was silent — as he always had been in emer- 
gencies, and as he was destined always to be. His was 
not a nature of expression, but of action. A crisis 
always brought him, like a bull-dog, silently to the 

grip. 

Hilda watched him puzzled, with bright eyes, like 
a squirrel. Her quick brain glanced here and 
there among the possibilities, seeking the explana- 
tion. Already she knew better than to demand it of 
him. 

“ You actually don’t think he’s engaged to me! ” she 
burst out finally. 

“ Isn’t he? ” asked Thorpe. 

“ Why no, stupid ! He’s engaged to Elizabeth Car- 
penter, Wallace’s sister. Now where did you get that 
silly idea ? ” 

“ I saw it in the paper.” 

“ And you believe all you see ! Why didn’t you ask 
Wallace — but of course you wouldn’t! Harry, you 
are the most incoherent dumb old brute I ever saw ! 
I could shake you ! Why don’t you say something oc- 
casionally when it’s needed, instead of sitting dumb as 
a sphinx and getting into all sorts of trouble? But 
you never will. I know you. You dear old bear! 
You need a wife to interpret things for you. You 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


401 


Speak a different language from most people.” She 
said this between laughing and crying ; between a sense 
of the ridiculous uselessness of withholding a single 
timely word, and a tender pathetic intuition of the suf- 
fering such a nature must endure. In the prospect of 
the future she saw her use. It gladdened her and filled 
her with a serene happiness possible only to those 
who feel themselves a necessary and integral part in 
the lives of the ones they love. Dimly she perceived 
this truth. Dimly beyond it she glimpsed that other 
great truth of nature, that the human being is rarely 
completely efficient alone, that in obedience to his 
greater use he must take to himself a mate before he 
can succeed. 

Suddenly she jumped to her feet with an exclama- 
tion. 

“ Oh, Harry ! I’d forgotten utterly ! ” she cried in 
laughing consternation. “ I have a luncheon here 
at half-past one! It’s almost that now. I must run 
and dress. Just look at me; just look! You did 
that! ” 

“ I’ll wait here until the confounded thing is over,” 
said Thorpe. 

“ Oh, no, you won’t,” replied Hilda decidedly. 
“ You are going down town right now and get some- 
thing to put on. Then you are coming back here to 
stay.” 

Thorpe glanced in surprise at his driver’s clothes, 
and his spiked boots. 

“ Heavens and earth ! ” he exclaimed, “ I should 
think so ! How am I to get out without ruining the 
floor ? ” 

Hilda laughed and drew aside the portiere. 

“ Don’t you think you have done that pretty well 
already ? ” she asked. “ There, don’t look so solemn. 
We’re not going to be sorry for a single thing we’ve 


402 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


done to-day, are we ? ” She stood close to him hold' 
ing the lapels of his jacket in either hand, searching 
his face wistfully with her fathomless dusky eyes. 

“ No, sweetheart, we are not,” replied Thorpe 
soberly. 


Chapter LIX 

^yURELY it is useless to follow the sequel in de- 
. \ tail, to tell how Hilda persuaded Thorpe to take 
her money. She aroused skillfully his fighting 
blood, induced him to use one fortune to rescue an- 
other. To a woman such as she this was not a very 
difficult task in the long run. A few scruples of pride ; 
that was all. 

“ Do not consider its being mine,” she answered to 
his objections. “ Remember the lesson we learned so 
bitterly. Nothing can be greater than love, not even 
our poor ideals. You have my love ; do not disappoint 
me by refusing so little a thing as my money.” 

“I hate to do it,” he replied; “it doesn’t look 
right.” 

“ You must,” she insisted. “ I will not take the po- 
sition of rich wife to a poor man ; it is humiliating to 
both. I will not marry you until you have made your 
success.” 

“ That is right,” said Thorpe heartily. 

“ Well, then, are you going to be so selfish as to 
keep me waiting while you make an entirely new start, 
when a little help on my part will bring your plans to 
completion ? ” 

She saw the shadow of assent in his eyes. 

“ How much do you need ? ” she asked swiftly. 

“ I must take up the notes,” he explained. “ I must 
pay the men. I may need something on the stock- 
market. If I go in on this thing, I’m going in for 
keeps. I’ll get after those fellows who have been 
403 


404 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

swindling Wallace. Say a hundred thousand dol- 
lars.” 

“ Why, it’s nothing,” she cried. 

“ I’m glad you think so,” he replied grimly. 

She ran to her dainty escritoire, where she scribbled 
eagerly for a few moments. 

“ There,” she cried, her eyes shining, “ there is my 
check book all signed in blank. I’ll see that the 
money is there.” 

Thorpe took the book, staring at it with sightless 
eyes. Hilda, perched on the arm of his chair, watched 
his face closely, as later became her habit of interpre- 
tation. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

Thorpe looked up with a pitiful little smile that 
seemed to beg indulgence for what he was about to 
say. 

“ I was just thinking, dear. I used to imagine I was 
a strong man, yet see how little my best efforts amount 
to. I have put myself into seven years of the hardest 
labor, working like ten men in order to succeed. I 
have foreseen all that mortal could foresee. I have 
always thought, and think now, that a man is no man 
unless he works out the sort of success for which he is 
fitted. I have done fairly well until the crises came. 
Then I have been absolutely powerless, and if left to 
myself, I would have failed. At the times when a 
really strong man would have used effectively the 
strength he had been training, I have fallen back mis- 
erably on outer aid. Three times my affairs have be- 
come critical. In the crises I have been saved, first 
by a mere boy ; then by an old illiterate man ; now by a 
weak woman ! ” 

She heard him through in silence. 

“ Harry,” she said soberly when he had quite fin- 
ished, “ I agree with you that God meant the strong 
man to succeed ; that without success the man has not 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


405 

fulfilled his reason for being. But, Harry, are you 
quite sure that God meant him to succeed alone? ” 

The dusk fell through the little room. Out in the 
hallway a tall clock ticked solemnly. A noiseless ser- 
vant appeared in the doorway to light the lamps, but 
was silently motioned away. 

“ I had not thought of that,” said Thorpe at last. 

“ You men are so selfish,” went on Hilda. “ You 
would take everything from us. Why can’t you leave 
us the poor little privilege of the occasional deciding 
touch, the privilege of succor. It is all that weakness 
can do for strength.” 

“ And why,” she went on after a moment, “ why is 
not that, too, a part of a man’s success — the gathering 
about him of people who can and will supplement his 
efforts ? Who was it inspired Wallace Carpenter with 
confidence in an unknown man? You. What did it? 
Those very qualities by which you were building your 
success. Why did John Radway join forces with you ? 
How does it happen that your men are of so high a 
standard of efficiency ? Why am I willing to give you 
everything, everything , to my heart and soul? Be- 
cause it is you who ask it. Because you, Harry 
Thorpe, have woven us into your fortune, so that we 
have no choice. Depend upon us in the crises of your 
work ! Why, so are you dependent on your ten fin- 
gers, your eyes, the fiber of your brain ! Do you think 
the less of your fulfillment for that?” 

So it was that Hilda Farrand gave her lover confi- 
dence, brought him out from his fanaticism, launched 
him afresh into the current of events. He remained 
in Chicago all that summer, giving orders that all work 
at the village of Carpenter should cease. With his 
affairs that summer we have little to do. His com- 
mon-sense treatment of the stock market, by which a 
policy of quiescence following an outright buying of 
the stock which he had previously held on margins, 


406 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

retrieved the losses already sustained, and finally put 
both partners on a firm financial footing. That is an- 
other story. So too is his reconciliation with and 
understanding of his sister. It came about through 
Hilda, of course. Perhaps in the inscrutable way of 
Providence the estrangement was of benefit, — even 
necessary, — for it had thrown him entirely within 
himself during his militant years. 

Let us rather look to the end of the summer. It 
now became a question of re-opening the camps. 
Thorpe wrote to Shearer and Radway, whom he had 
retained, that he would arrive on Saturday noon, and 
suggested that the two begin to look about for men. 
Friday, himself, Wallace Carpenter, Elizabeth Carpen- 
ter, Morton, Helen Thorpe, and Hilda Farrand board- 
ed the north-bound train. 


Chapter LX 


r HE train of the South Shore Railroad shot its 
way across the broad reaches of the northern 
peninsula. On either side of the right-of-way 
lay mystery in the shape of thickets so dense and over- 
grown that the eye could penetrate them but a few feet 
at most. Beyond them stood the forests. Thus Nat- 
ure screened her intimacies from the impertinent eye 
of a new order of things. 

Thorpe welcomed the smell of the northland. He 
became almost eager, explaining, indicating to the 
girl at his side. 

“ There is the Canada balsam,” he cried. “ Do you 
remember how I showed it to you first ? And yonder 
the spruce. How stuck up your teeth were when you 
tried to chew the gum before it had been heated. Do 
you remember? Look! Look there! It’s a white 
pine ! Isn’t it a grand tree ? It’s the finest tree in the 
forest, by my way of thinking, so tall, so straight, so 
feathery, and so dignified. See, Hilda, look quick! 
There’s an old logging road all filled with raspberry 
vines. We’d find lots of partridges there, and perhaps 
a bear. Wouldn’t you just like to walk down it about 
sunset? ” 

“ Yes, Harry.” 

“ I wonder what we’re stopping for. Seems to me 
they are stopping at every squirrel’s trail. Oh, this 
must be Seney. Yes, it is. Queer little place, isn’t it? 
but sort of attractive. Good deal like our town. You 
have never seen Carpenter, have you? Location’s 
407 


408 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

fine, anyway; and to me it’s sort of picturesque. 
You’ll like Mrs. Hathaway. She’s a buxom, motherly 
woman who runs the boarding-house for eighty men, 
and still finds time to mend my clothes for me. And 
you’ll like Solly. Solly’s the tug captain, a mighty 
good fellow, true as a gun barrel. We’ll have him take 
us out, some still day. We’ll be there in a few minutes 
now. See the cranberry marshes. Sometimes there’s 
a good deal of pine on little islands scattered over it, 
but it’s very hard to log, unless you get a good winter. 
We had just such a proposition when I worked for 
Radway. Oh, you’ll like Radway, he’s as good as 
gold. Helen ! ” 

“ Yes,” replied his sister. 

“ I want you to know Radway. He’s the man who 
gave me my start.” 

“ All right, Harry,” laughed Helen. “ I’ll meet any- 
body or anything from bears to Indians.” 

“I know an Indian too — Geezigut, an Ojibwa — 
we called him Injin Charley. He was my first friend 
in the north woods. He helped me get my timber. 
This spring he killed a man — a good job, too — and 
is hiding now. I wish I knew where he is. But we’ll 
see him some day. He’ll come back when the thing 
blows over. See ! See ! ” 

“ What ? ” they all asked, breathless. 

“ It’s gone. Over beyond the hills there I caught 
a glimpse of Superior.” 

“ You are ridiculous, Harry,” protested Helen 
Thorpe laughingly. “ I never saw you so. You are 
a regular boy ! ” 

“ Do you like boys ? ” he asked gravely of Hilda. 

“ Adore them ! ” she cried. 

“ All right, I don’t care,” he answered his sister in 
triumph. 

The air brakes began to make themselves felt, and 
shortly the train came to a grinding stop. 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


409 

“ What station is this ? ” Thorpe asked the colored 
porter. 

“ Shingleville, sah,” the latter replied. 

“ I thought so. Wallace, when did their mill burn, 
anyway ? I haven’t heard about it.” 

“ Last spring, about the time you went down.” 

“ Is that so? How did it happen? ” 

“ They claim incendiarism,” parried Wallace cau- 
tiously. 

Thorpe pondered a moment, then laughed. “ I am 
in the mixed attitude of the small boy,” he observed, 
“ who isn’t mean enough to wish anybody’s property 
destroyed, but who wishes that if there is a fire, to be 
where he can see it. I am sorry those fellows had to 
lose their mill, but it was a good thing for us. The 
man who set that fire did us a good turn. If it hadn’t 
been for the burning of their mill, they would have 
made a stronger fight against us in the stock market.” 

Wallace and Hilda exchanged glances. The girl 
was long since aware of the inside history of those 
days. 

“ You’ll have to tell them that,” she whispered over 
the back of her seat. “ It will please them.” 

“ Our station is next ! ” cried Thorpe, “ and it’s only 
a little ways. Come, get ready ! ” 

They all crowded into the narrow passage-way near 
the door, for the train barely paused. 

“ All right, sah,” said the porter, swinging down his 
little step. 

Thorpe ran down to help the ladies. He was nearly 
taken from his feet by a wild-cat yell, and a moment 
later that result was actually accomplished by a rush 
of men that tossed him bodily onto its shoulders. At 
the same moment, the mill and tug whistles began to 
screech, miscellaneous fire-arms exploded. Even the 
locomotive engineer, in the spirit of the occasion, 
leaned down heartily on his whistle rope. The saw- 


the blazed trail 


410 

dust street was filled with screaming, jostling men. 
The homes of the town were brilliantly draped with 
cheesecloth, flags and bunting. 

For a moment Thorpe could not make out what had 
happened. This turmoil was so different from the 
dead quiet of desertion he had expected, that he was 
unable to gather his faculties. All about him were 
familiar faces upturned to his own. He distinguished 
the broad, square shoulders of Scotty Parsons, Jack 
Hyland, Kerlie, Bryan Moloney ; Ellis grinned at him 
from the press; Billy Camp, the fat and shiny drive 
cook ; Mason, the foreman of the mill ; over beyond 
howled Solly, the tug captain, Rollway Charley, 
Shorty, the chore-boy ; everywhere were features that 
he knew. As his dimming eyes travelled here and 
there, one by one the Fighting Forty, the best crew 
of men ever gathered in the northland, impressed 
themselves on his consciousness. Saginaw birlers, 
Flat River drivers, woodsmen from the forests of 
lower Canada, bully boys out of the Muskegon waters, 
peavey men from Au Sable, white-water dare-devils 
from the rapids of the Menominee — all were there to 
do him honor, him in whom they had learned to see 
the supreme qualities of their calling. On the out- 
skirts sauntered the tall form of Tim Shearer, a straw 
peeping from beneath his flax-white mustache, his 
eyes glimmering under his flax-white eyebrows. He 
did not evidence as much excitement as the others, 
but the very bearing of the man expressed the deepest 
satisfaction. Perhaps he remembered that zero morn- 
ing so many years before when he had watched the 
thinly-clad, shivering chore-boy set his face for the 
first time towards the dark forest. 

Big Junko and Anderson deposited their burden on 
the raised platform of the office steps. Thorpe turned 
and fronted the crowd. 

At once pandemonium broke loose, as though the 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


411 

previous performance had been nothing but a low- 
voiced rehearsal. 

The men looked upon their leader and gave voice 
to the enthusiasm that was in them. He stood alone 
there, straight and tall, the muscles of his brown face 
set to hide his emotion, his head thrust back proudly, 
the lines of his strong figure tense with power, — the 
glorification in finer matter of the hardy, reliant men 
who did him honor. 

“ Oh, aren’t you proud of him ? ” gasped Hilda, 
squeezing Helen’s arm with a little sob. 

In a moment Wallace Carpenter, his countenance 
glowing with pride and pleasure, mounted the plat- 
form and stood beside his friend, while Morton 
and the two young ladies stopped half way up the 
steps. 

At once the racket ceased. Everyone stood at at- 
tention. 

“ Mr. Thorpe,” Wallace began, “ at the request of 
your friends here, I have a most pleasant duty to fulfill. 
They have asked me to tell you how glad they are to 
see you ; that is surely unnecessary. They have also 
asked me to congratulate you on having won the fight 
with our rivals.” 

“ You done ’em good.” “ Can’t down the Old Fel- 
low,” muttered joyous voices. 

“ But,” said Wallace, “ I think that I first have a 
story to tell on my own account. 

“ At the time the jam broke this spring, we owed 
the men here for a year’s work. At that time I con,- 
sidered their demand for wages ill-timed and grasp- 
ing. I wish to apologize. After the money was paid 
them, instead of scattering, they set to work under 
Jack' Radway and Tim Shearer to salvage your logs. 
They have worked long hours all summer. They 
have invested every cent of their year’s earnings in 
supplies and tools, and now they are prepared to show 


412 THE BLAZED TRAIL 

you in the Company's booms, three million feet of 
logs, rescued by their grit and hard labor from total, 
loss.” 

At this point the speaker was interrupted. “ Saw 
off,” “ Shut up,” “ Give us a rest,” growled the audi- 
ence. “ Three million feet ain't worth talkin’ about,” 
“ You make me tired,” “ Say your little say the way 
you oughter,” “ Found purty nigh two millions pock- 
eted on Mare’s Island, or we wouldn’t a had that 
much,” “ Damn-fool undertaking, anyhow.” 

“ Men,” cried Thorpe, “ I have been very fortunate. 
From failure success has come. But never have I 
been more fortunate than in my friends. The firm is 
now on its feet. It could afford to lose three times 
the logs it lost this year ” 

He paused and scanned their faces. 

“ But,” he continued suddenly, “ it cannot now, nor 
ever can afford to lose what those three million feet 
represent, — the friends it has made. I can pay you 
back the money you have spent and the time you have 

put in ” Again he looked them over, and then 

for the first time since they have known him his face 
lighted up with a rare and tender smile of affection. 
“ But, comrades, I shall not offer to do it : the gift is 
accepted in the spirit with which it was offered ” 

He got no further. The air was rent with sound. 
Even the members of his own party cheered. From 
every direction the crowd surged inward. The women 
and Morton were forced up the platform to Thorpe. 
The latter motioned for silence. 

“ Now, boys, we have done it,” said he, “ and so will 
go back to work. From now on you are my comrades 
in the fight.” 

His eyes were dim; his breast heaved; his voice 
shook. Hilda was weeping from excitement. Through 
the tears she saw them all looking at their leader, and 
in the worn, hard faces glowed the affection and admi- 


THE BLAZED TRAIL 


413 

ration of a dog for its master. Something there was 
especially touching in this, for strong men rarely show 
it. She felt a great wave of excitement sweep over 
her. Instantly she was standing by Thorpe, her eyes 
streaming, her breast throbbing with emotion. 

“ Oh ! ” she cried, stretching her arms out to them 
passionately, “ Oh ! I love you ; I love you all ! ” 


THE END 



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